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DISSECTING LEFTISM MIRROR
Leftists just KNOW what is good for us. Conservatives need evidence..
Why are Leftists always talking about hate? Because it fills their own hearts As President, Trump will be as transformative as Reagan; He has blown the political consensus out of the water |
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31 December, 2017
The Year Reheated
David Thompson
In which we marvel at the mental contortions of our self-imagined betters.
The year began with searing insights from the world of academia. Specifically, London’s School of Oriental and African Studies, where black student activists denounced objectivity as an "alienating" concept, and issued numerous demands, allegedly to challenge stereotypes of student laziness and inadequacy. It turns out that the way to avoid any appearance of such things is to complain about the "stress and anxiety" of being corrected, or disagreed with, especially by people who are insufficiently brown and deferential.
Elsewhere, the psychological reverberations of Donald Trump’s election victory continued to be felt, as when a charmingly progressive lady sensed a fellow plane passenger’s failure to vote as she did and promptly threatened to vomit on him.
Other pious lefties signalled their moral superiority by planning to sabotage transport infrastructure, stranding and distressing countless random people, and thereby reminding us that "social justice" posturing is often difficult to distinguish from petty malice or outright sociopathy.
Meanwhile, Laurie Penny preferred to advocate "spite" as a guiding progressive principal, as if this were a new and novel development.
February provided further illustrations of this fashionable malice, as when educators at the University of Cincinnati bemoaned the fact that their attempts to inculcate unrealism, dishonesty and pretentious racial guilt were still being met with pockets of resistance. Objecting to slander and brow-beating by bigoted mediocrities is, we learned, merely "white fragility" and therefore, somehow, damning proof of racism.
Racial fixations were also in play at the Writing Centre at the University of Washington, Tacoma, the stated goal of which is to "help writers succeed in a racist society," a goal to be achieved by denouncing grammar as "an unjust language structure," and the correction of punctuation as "an oppressive practice." Because those ungrammatical job applications, the ones enlivened with incomprehensible sentences and lots of inventive spelling, will do just fine.
We also learned of the steep price to be paid for small acts of courtesy – namely, holding open a door for a Guardian contributor with weight issues and a gift for hysterical screaming.
Accessorising was an unexpected topic of discussion in March, when the crushingly put-upon students at Pitzer College, Claremont, California, informed the world that "winged eyeliner and big hoop earrings" are "an everyday act of resistance," and should therefore be the exclusive ornamentation of the slightly brown and radical.
Elsewhere, at Middlebury College, Dr Charles Murray attempted to give a lecture on, among other things, the dangers of tribalism and social fragmentation, only to be met with tribal hysteria and an actual riot, complete with slanderous chants, hospitalised staff and students wearing ski masks.
In April, the immense, frustrated love machine Caleb Luna wondered why his Grindr profile attracts so little interest. Carefully sidestepping the possibility of weight loss, Mr Luna decided that the rest of us must "interrogate" our "phobias," which is to say our preferences, and consequently start lusting after "alternative bodies." Specifically, bodies like Mr Luna’s.
Avoiding the obvious was also a theme in the world of performance art, where Shannon Cochrane and Márcio Carvalho unwittingly entertained us with their deep thoughts, shifting paradigms and heads wrapped in meat.
Another highlight of the month came via Everyday Feminism’s Emily Zak, who wanted us to know that the allure of fresh air is, like everything else, terribly oppressive, due to the "painfully heteronormative" nature of wildland firefighting, and a shortage of adverts featuring gay people kayaking in a suitably gay-affirming manner.
Artistic innovations were at the forefront of May, when performance artist Sarah Hill shook our tiny mental worlds with a "temporal historical rupture" that is "cathartically dialogical," and achieved by falling over repeatedly while dressed as Wonder Woman.
No less impressive were the attempts to "transform" middle-school children by making maths lessons "intersectional," thereby furthering the cause of "social justice." A process that entailed reducing the time available for humdrum things like trigonometry and using it instead to teach children to "subvert power," while scorning maths itself as a "dehumanising tool."
June brought us a "guerrilla performance" by "artist, healer and dancer" Shizu Homma, who "interrogates the human condition" with her creative tremendousness.
The month also brought us not one, but two illustrations of what happens when leftwing student psychodrama is allowed to run its course. And not entirely unrelated, we also pondered news that expired pet owners are sometimes eaten by their own dogs, cats and hamsters.
In July, we once again witnessed the educational benefits of "an academic background in gender studies," and self-declared activist and single mother Jody Allard impressed us with her exemplary feminist parenting, and a determination to humiliate her own teenage sons, publicly and in print, for the sins of being white and male, and therefore, obviously, potential rapists.
Google software developer James Damore rose to notoriety in August by politely questioning the gospel of identity politics, promptly getting fired for it, and triggering a truly boggling display of near-total media dishonesty.
Elsewhere, at the University of Florida, identity politics devotees complained about the "violence" of not being taken seriously, while demanding the construction of two entirely separate buildings to house the university’s black and Latino student groups, because sharing a building, or at least an entrance lobby, would "erase and marginalise their black and brown bodies."
August also provided several vivid insights into the psychology of "social justice," as when a mob of severely educated student Mao-lings demanded "empathy" while laughing at accounts of random beatings and then assaulting people themselves, in the name of tolerance.
In the pages of The Atlantic, educator Alice Ristroph watched a total eclipse and somehow saw nothing but racism; while fellow educator Dr A.W. Strouse, whose works include Literary Theories of the Foreskin and deep ruminations on the preputial connotations of aluminium cans, signalled his radicalism by advising students to say "fuck you" to potential employers during job interviews.
Our sexual horizons were broadened in September when we learned of the phenomenon of "ecosexuality" and the orgasmic delights of rock rubbing, tree licking and frottage al fresco.
Meanwhile, academia’s Clown Quarter continued to bewilder. Dr Michael Isaacson, an adjunct professor specialising in "anti-capitalist economic theories" at CUNY’s John Jay College of Criminal Justice, repeatedly tweeted his enthusiasm for the murder of random police officers, and of future officers, including his own students.
And Harvard-educated sociology professor Crystal Fleming championed the looting of trainers while the law-abiding were distracted by an oncoming hurricane.
October brought us more unhinged educators, among them, University of Pennsylvania teaching assistant Stephanie McKellopp, whose areas of expertise include "self-marriage" and "racial blame," and who signalled her wokeness by announcing her classroom policy of ignoring white male students.
We were also told, by Charles Davis, a professor of education at the University of Southern California, that any hint of consequences for acts of thuggery on campus is "racist" and "unfair," as it creates "an unsafe and threatening environment" for students who like to indulge in coercive and threatening behaviour.
At the University of California, Irvine, the identity-politics contingent displayed its mental brilliance again in November, and also at Ballou High School, Washington, DC, where, thanks to "social justice," students who are barely literate and rarely seen in class all somehow graduated and were promptly waved through the gates of a college or university.
And at Wilfrid Laurier University, Ontario, the sadistic, fever-dream world of leftist educators was caught on tape quite shockingly, when teaching assistant Lindsay Shepherd found herself being accused of "targeted violence" and of being "threatening," for remaining politically neutral and politely presenting both sides of an argument.
As the year drew to a close, we witnessed the mental disarray wrought by competitive virtue signalling, wherein racial wokeness veered towards Gorillas in the Mist territory. And we learned that standards of diligence and proficiency are racist and oppressive, according to Purdue University’s Dr Donna Riley, who congratulates herself for her own "alternative ways of thinking," and who scorns expectations of rigour and competence as "exclusionary," mere tools of "privilege," and therefore unfair to women and minorities, for whom rigour and competence are presumably impossible.
So. Quite a year.
SOURCE
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Expensive bureaucracy
The U.S. government pays employees a total of about $1 million per minute, according to a watchdog group’s report on the sprawling federal bureaucracy.
Looking at 78 large agencies, the nonprofit organization OpenTheBooks.com found that the average salary of a federal employee exceeds $100,000 and that roughly 1 in 5 of those on the government payroll has a six-figure salary.
Almost 30,000 rank-and-file government employees make over $190,823, more than any governor of the 50 states.
"Our oversight report shows the size, scope, and power of the administrative state," Adam Andrzejewski, Open the Books’ CEO and founder, told The Daily Signal in a phone interview. "Two million federal bureaucrats have salaries, extraordinary perquisites, and lifetime pension benefits. This compensation package has never been seen in the private sector."
The median wage for all American workers was $44,148 a year for a 40-hour work week in the final quarter of 2016, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics.
Andrzejewski said the Open the Books report, released Tuesday and including an interactive map of the 2 million federal bureaucrats by ZIP code, is meant to educate taxpayers on where their dollars are going.
So what about those perks?
When federal employees reach the third anniversary of their employment, he said, "they get eight and a half weeks’ paid time off," including "10 holidays, 13 sick days, and 20 vacation days." [Correction: The word "plus" has been replaced with "including" to convey his meaning accurately.]
"We estimate those perks alone cost the American taxpayer $22.6 billion a year," Andrzejewski said.
With the government paying the disclosed workforce $1 million per minute, according to the report, every eight-hour workday costs taxpayers more than $500 million.
A total of 406,960 employees make a six-figure income, amounting to roughly 1 in 5 employees. From 2010 through 2016, the number of federal employees making more than $200,000 increased by 165 percent.
SOURCE
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Trump's tax returns
During a recent press conference, a reporter with MSNBC hollered from the press corps,"Where is President Trump hiding his tax returns?"
Press Secretary, Sarah Huckabee Sanders, astutely responded, "We've found a very secure place and I'm certain they won't be found."
"And just where is that?", said the reporter, sarcastically.
Mrs. Sanders grinned sardonically and said, "They are underneath Obama's college records, his passport application, his immigration status as a student, his funding sources to pay for college, his college records, and his Selective Service registration.
"Next question?"
The above appears to be a myth but it makes a good point nonetheless. Obama's university records are "sealed" and the original of his birth certificate has never been produced, only printed "copies"
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For more blog postings from me, see TONGUE-TIED, EDUCATION WATCH INTERNATIONAL, GREENIE WATCH, POLITICAL CORRECTNESS WATCH, AUSTRALIAN POLITICS, and Paralipomena (Occasionally updated), a Coral reef compendium and an IQ compendium. (Both updated as news items come in). GUN WATCH is now mainly put together by Dean Weingarten. I also put up occasional updates on my Personal blog and each day I gather together my most substantial current writings on THE PSYCHOLOGIST.
Email me here (Hotmail address). My Home Pages are here (Academic) or here (Pictorial) or here (Personal)
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29 December, 2017
Donald Trump's Sechel — Yes, Sechel!
"It’s the economy, stupid," as we used to say back in the good old days — the good old days being the 1990s, when the president of the United States could have molested women in the White House during business hours with impunity. In fact, if memory serves, that president, William J. Clinton, saw his popularity soar after accusations of his molestations were made public, or at least after some of them were made public. If all of them were made public, according to wisdom of the time, he might have been elected president for life. Those were the days when then-Senators Edward Kennedy and Christopher Dodd ranged freely on Capitol Hill and, back in New York City, young Anthony Weiner was getting amorous thoughts and restless stirrings in his lower parts about the life led by the likes of Kennedy.
Yet even in those heady times, "it" was "the economy stupid," a phrase made famous by the poet James Carville. The vibrant economy saved President Bill Clinton, and I assume it will save President Donald Trump from his shocking tweets and other inexcusable acts that are so hurtful to the bien pensants of Washington, DC, and New York. At present, the stock market is setting record after record. That is truly significant to the lives of an increasing number of people who have money in the market or look to the market for direction. According to a CNBC All-America Economic Survey, for the first time in at least 11 years more than half those surveyed thought the prospects for the economy either good or excellent.
Unemployment is down; the Bureau of Labor Statistics claims that 1.9 million jobs have been added to the economy since President Trump’s inauguration. The growth in gross domestic product has been vibrant — over 3 percent in the last two quarters — and now the New York Fed is talking about 4 percent for this last quarter. If Carville’s observation is correct — and in the 1990s it was held to be sacred by tout le monde — Trump and the Republicans do not have much to worry about in the off-year elections of 2018, to say nothing of the presidential election two years later.
Yet there is more. The Islamic State group, or ISIL, as it has been called, was held to be formidable back in President Barack Obama’s day but has been decimated. At one time it was spreading its tentacles throughout Syria and Iraq, and one got the impression from the Obama administration that it was invincible. Doubtless there were people in his national security apparatus who considered giving ISIL a seat at the United Nations, or possibly one on the UN Security Council.
Now the so-called Islamic caliphate is in terminal decline, and that is thanks to President Trump and his national security team. By the way, Trump’s whole Middle Eastern policy is looking better all the time. Upon second glance, his recognition of Jerusalem as Israel’s capital was greeted with relative calm throughout the region, where things have quieted down from a couple of weeks ago. Obviously, the Arabs have graver concerns today, for instance Iran and missiles launched from Yemen.
Actually, on a whole range of issues, the president is looking not like a billionaire real estate developer, or even a television celebrity, but like a graduate of Harvard Kennedy School. There are his many superb court appointments. There is his successful deregulation program that is encouraging growth. He took the United States out of the Paris climate accord. He is shoring up our borders and attending to our out-of-control immigration laws, and now he has his tax reform. It cuts corporate and individual taxes and repeals the Obamacare individual mandates once thought immutable. The blooming economy will bloom some more, and my guess is that it will not contribute to the national debt as President Obama’s slow growth did.
How has Donald Trump been such a wizard without conferring with Official Washington or any of the usual sages? I have researched the matter. He is not a member of the Council on Foreign Relations. He never attended class at the Kennedy School, and if he visited a Washington think tank, it was The Heritage Foundation. Where has he gotten his ideas, and how did he learn to implement them with all the Washington wisenheimers against him? Well, here is a tip from one of Trump’s earliest supporters: He got his ideas from the American experience. He is a patriot. As for how he implemented them, he did it the same way he amassed a fortune. He used his sechel — the Yiddish word for a combination of intelligence, street smarts and wisdom. Some call it statecraft.
SOURCE
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Democrats Aim to Make Tax Cuts Unpopular
Their Leftmedia propaganda machine is happy to oblige, pushing the BIG Lie on Americans.
It was a sight conservatives have waited decades to see. This week on the White House lawn, President Donald Trump was flanked by House Republicans in a ceremony marking a historic legislative achievement: the passage of the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act of 2017. The act is being heralded in many circles as the most conservative, pro-growth policy to emerge from Congress since President Ronald Reagan’s 1986 tax reform.
One might think the name of the act alone would clearly resonate with the American people. (Then again, when you have legislative catastrophes named the "Affordable Care Act," folks can be forgive for some cynicism.) What could be better than keeping more of our hard-earned money and giving businesses the ability to invest in our nation’s economy, hire more workers and raise wages?
Apparently, not everyone is on board. In fact, most people don’t believe it.
How did this happen? How could the House Republican leadership and even the president allow such a momentous occasion to be summarily dismissed by the very people who will benefit?
Republicans have historically lost the public relations battle to Democrats and their mainstream media accessories, and while yesterday’s ceremony is a step in the right direction, one senses that average, hard-working Americans still want a common-sense explanation for how this tax bill will put more money in their pockets. This should have been done in the weeks leading up to the vote, but once again Republicans failed to control the debate.
Investor’s Business Daily reports that the tax plan is "widely unpopular" or "wildly unpopular" or "horribly unpopular," depending on which news outlet one reads. The polling analysts at FiveThirtyEight say the tax plan is "historically unpopular," noting that it gets an average of just 33% support in nine surveys taken in December, with 52% saying they oppose it." Yes, that’s the same FiveThirtyEight that had Hillary Clinton beating Donald Trump late into the evening on election night. Nonetheless, someone is shaping the public’s perception about this bill, and it’s not Republicans on Capitol Hill.
Most of the surveys asked very broad questions about whether Americans support the plan or whether they think they’ll receive any benefits. It’s no wonder that many respondents are suspicious about the legislation. After all, Democrats demonized the act as soon as they got a whiff of it. While Republicans in the House and Senate were squabbling over the details, Democrats had effectively characterized the plan as another scheme to take from the poor and give to the rich. It’s a BIG Lie, but an effective one.
National Review’s Jibran Khan states, "The predictable result is that a false claim — Republicans are raising taxes on all but the very rich, full stop — has spread like wildfire across Twitter, and has been given added momentum by think tanks, verified accounts, and trending hashtags. This effort has certainly paid off. According to a recent New York Times poll, only a third of Americans believe that they will see their taxes go down in 2018. It should come as no surprise, then, that the bill’s extreme unpopularity is in line with historic tax rises, rather than tax cuts: The majority of people think it’s a hike."
But it’s hard to run from the facts, and even The Washington Post had to admit that "8 in 10 Americans will pay lower taxes next year, according to the nonpartisan [insert hysterical laughter at that characterization] Tax Policy Center’s analysis of the final bill. Only 5 percent of people will pay more next year. Mostly, those are folks who earn six figures and own expensive houses in places with high local taxes, such as New York and California." Yet the Post led the Leftmedia assault on the bill, and none of those outlets are backing down in their effort to mislead the American people.
Alexandra DeSanctis writes in National Review, "A couple of weeks ago, the NYT editorial board co-opted the Twitter account of its opinion page and spent an entire afternoon issuing tweets, urging readers to call their senators to protest the tax-reform bill. They even went so far as to include the office numbers for each senator, so readers could more easily petition their representatives. It was outright political lobbying, from an editorial board that has routinely denounced Citizens United and decried the supposed involvement of ‘dark money’ in U.S. politics."
Clearly, Democrats and their media propaganda machine will go to any lengths to stop the Trump/Republican agenda.
Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-NY) said that the legislation "will be an anchor to the ankles of every Republican running in 2018." Really? If Democrats truly believed that the tax plan will backfire on Republicans, then why did they fight so hard to stop it? Sounds more like Democrats are fearful that Americans will forget all of the rhetoric when they see more money in their 2018 paychecks.
Even so, Republicans aren’t helping matters. They need to do more than sit around and wait for the truth to take hold.
The fact that a significant number of Americans think that one of the largest tax cuts in American history is actually a tax hike should put Republicans at all levels on notice that they need to do a better job of communicating their ideas. This is the only way to overcome the coordinated assault on a measure that will fatten nearly everyone’s wallet.
But this is the problem. Democrats have always circled the wagons and come up with catch phrases and slogans to drive their points home. They never shy away from making their case, even when their case is baseless. Many Americans still believe that Democrats are the party of the working class, and Republicans are fat cats. That’s because the Left has been in lockstep on message for decades.
It’s time for Republicans to defend their ideas without apology. For the first time since Reagan, we have a president willing to embrace a bold, conservative agenda — if only members of his own party would join him.
President Trump has never been afraid of winning, but it’s taken Republican leaders in Congress a full year to catch on.
SOURCE
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New Trump EO Targets corruptocrats
President Trump quietly signed an Executive Order on December 21st targeting lobbyists and Clinton Foundation-linked individuals involved in human rights abuses and corruption.
This EO allows for the freezing of any U.S. housed assets belonging to foreign people or entities considered "serious human rights abusers".
Furthermore, anyone in the United States who aids or participates in said corruption or human rights abuses by foreign parties is subject to frozen assets – along with any U.S. corporation who employs foreigners deemed to have engaged in corruption on behalf of the company, reports Zero Hedge.
The Order could have serious implications for D.C. lobbyists who provide "goods and services" (e.g. lobbying services) to despots, corrupt foreign politicians or foreign organizations engaging in the crimes described in the EO. "Virtually every lobbyist in DC has got to be in a cold sweat over the scope of this EO," said an attorney consulted in the matter who wishes to remain anonymous.
Many of the individuals listed are friends of the Obamas and Clintons and donors to the Clinton Foundation.
SOURCE
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For more blog postings from me, see TONGUE-TIED, EDUCATION WATCH INTERNATIONAL, GREENIE WATCH, POLITICAL CORRECTNESS WATCH, AUSTRALIAN POLITICS, and Paralipomena (Occasionally updated), a Coral reef compendium and an IQ compendium. (Both updated as news items come in). GUN WATCH is now mainly put together by Dean Weingarten. I also put up occasional updates on my Personal blog and each day I gather together my most substantial current writings on THE PSYCHOLOGIST.
Email me here (Hotmail address). My Home Pages are here (Academic) or here (Pictorial) or here (Personal)
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28 December, 2017
No, Melania’s Christmas Selfie Was Not ‘Offensive,’ and She Did Not Deserve the Attacks on her
Being good-looking has its perils -- particularly with envious people
Melania Trump did a lot this Christmas. But perhaps nothing captured people’s attention on social media more than a cheeky tweet she made using a Snapchat filter with golden flying reindeer and wishing everyone a #MerryChristmas.
It got 80,000 likes as of this writing and was retweeted 14,000 times. People seemed to enjoy the fun of it.
But then those on the Left made it their duty to smear Melania as a horrible First Lady for posting the innocent image.
They mocked and bullied her until the cows came home, attempting to use the innocent gesture as proof that Melania was a horrible First Lady and role model for our nation’s youth.
"Disgraceful for a First Lady, Christmas or not. You look like a model on a photo shoot for the front page of Hustler. I'm sure the elderly and poor will appreciate this photo given how you and hubby don't care about them, only your millionaire friends at Mar-a-Largo"
From Ib Times:
"Seriously Melania??? That photo is excessively TACKY!!! Zero class in this," a critic shared, calling out the First Lady over the Christmas selfie that was shared on the official Flotus twitter and Instagram account.
"Incredibly tacky and an insult to the position of First Lady. #embarrassing #trumpban," a second user tweeted, as someone else chimed in, "Are you the FLOTUS or a Kardashian? Good Lord."
More:
A critic sarcastically added, "wow! Extremely First Lady-ish! How I miss Michelle Obama!" Speaking of sarcasm, some social media users didn’t even hesitate to use harsh words to criticise the First Lady’s latest selfie.
"Why do I immediately think that this is a cover of a "Playboy" magazines?" One follower of the Flotus shared in the comments section, to which another responded, "Because it looks exactly like the cover of a Playboy Magazine. Just a guess."
But the last laugh may be on the critics. A recent Gallup poll put Melania’s favorability rating at 54 percent so it’s not hard to see that she gets a lot of attention.
Melania and her husband, President Donald Trump are celebrating the holiday at Mar-a-Lago.
They went to a Christmas Eve service at The Episcopal Church of Bethesda-by-the-Sea, the church where they had been married in 2005. They were greeted with open arms and received a standing ovation.
SOURCE
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Attorney General Jeff Sessions praised for opening Uranium One probe
Americans for Limited Government President Rick Manning today issued the following statement praising Attorney General Jeff Sessions for reopening the Uranium One matter:
"Various reports that the Attorney General has ordered a review of the facts surrounding the sale of Uranium One to Russian interests demonstrates that not only will internal determinations about legality of the sale be examined, but potential conflicts of interests of those involved. Also, whether information was deliberately withheld from the Committee on Foreign Investment by the Justice Department. And if Hillary Clinton had any culpability in the process of the sale.
Given that many of the same Department of Justice officials now overseeing major investigations at the department were a major part of the Rosatom subsidiary Tenex (the Russian atomic energy agency) corruption case, it is important to determine what, if any, Russian ties and conflicts they might have had.
"The Uranium One case has achieved notoriety in recent months as an FBI whistleblower has come forward with serious allegations of malfeasance in the handling of the case as persons affiliated with the deal gave approximately $145 million to the Clinton Foundation, while former President Bill Clinton received $500,000 for a speech to a Russian investment firm involved in the sale.
"Attorney General Sessions is right to look into these matters to ensure that the public interest and law were followed throughout the process in light of very credible whistleblower allegations."
SOURCE
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The New York Times Left Socialism’s Role Out of Its Report on Venezuela’s Devastation
Kudos to The New York Times—yes, The New York Times—for running an excellent, detailed story on the mass starvation and economic catastrophe taking place in Venezuela.
As the Times notes, Venezuela has the largest known oil reserves in the world, yet is going through a starvation crisis exacerbated and hidden by its own government.
Common items like baby formula are almost unattainable for the average person and the crisis is deepening.
Alas, missing from the Times analysis is nearly any discussion of the reality that Venezuela is a socialist country once praised by America’s liberal elite.
In fact, only a single mention of the ruling socialist party near the end of the piece can be found.
Venezuela was once praised by left-wing pundits—including in the Times’ opinion section—for being a model of glowing success.
In fact, scoffing at claims of Venezuela’s alleged mismanagement under then-President Hugo Chávez, one New York Times contributor wrote in 2012:
Since the Chávez government got control over the national oil industry, poverty has been cut by half, and extreme poverty by 70 percent. College enrollment has more than doubled, millions of people have access to health care for the first time and the number of people eligible for public pensions has quadrupled.
Less than half a decade later, the collapse has come. Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro, who once published an op-ed in The New York Times, has made himself a dictator as the country faces runaway inflation reminiscent of Zimbabwe.
Venezuela’s inflation spiked to 4,115 percent at the end of 2017, according to a CNN Money report, leading more than one economist to conclude that the country’s economy is in a "death spiral."
So how did Venezuela get here?
The answer is that socialism, as always, ends with running out of other people’s money.
James M. Roberts, the research fellow in economic freedom and growth at The Heritage Foundation, wrote about how dysfunctional policies such as nationalizing industries and redistribution schemes have destroyed a once thriving country.
The private economy has been almost completely wrecked, and is now unable to meet even the most basic demands of the population.
But it isn’t just socialist policies that have led to this catastrophe. Venezuela is one of the most corrupt countries in the world and has very little economic freedom.
Roberts wrote: "Venezuela’s score in the Transparency International Corruption Perceptions Index makes it the most corrupt country in the Western Hemisphere, and helped drag the country to the bottom of The Heritage Foundation’s annual Index of Economic Freedom, too."
As Heritage’s Latin American policy analyst, Ana Quintana, noted in The Hill, Venezuela’s leaders have managed to secure for themselves absolute power and wealth through repressive government actions and turning their country into a criminal enterprise.
Their leaders are "directly involved in corruption, the drug trade, human rights violations, and support for terrorist groups," Quintana wrote.
For instance, the current Venezuelan vice president, Tareck El Aissami, was designated by the U.S. Treasury as drug kingpin with connections to Islamist terrorist organizations. He’s been hit with heavy sanctions by the Trump administration, but is a good example of the kinds of problems that pervade Venezuela’s government.
He’s only one of many.
Despite egalitarian socialist rhetoric, Venezuela’s ruling class has managed to both enrich itself and protect that wealth at the expense of the public.
With outright corruption rampant, promises of material care by a benevolent state can seem appealing as an alternative to "capitalism" when capitalism is simply defined as cronies in government working with cronies in big business for their own benefit.
Alas, like in George Orwell’s "Animal Farm," the new overlords end up being just like the old ones, or worse.
The rule of law and a free economy have generally combined to form the secret sauce of a flourishing economy.
Lacking both, Venezuela has somehow squandered a gold mine—or oil reserves to be more literal—in its downward descent into bankruptcy, tyranny, and mass starvation. Being oil rich has only masked the deep dysfunction under the surface of the Venezuelan regime.
Perhaps this should be a sobering wake-up call to millennials who in worryingly large numbers say they’d rather live under socialism or communism rather than capitalism.
Socialism’s failures in the last century should be enough to disabuse Americans of any notion that this broken political philosophy, which runs counter to human nature, is in any way the answer to our problems.
But if history fails to be a guide, then the modern demonstration of yet another socialist country immolating itself, starving its people, and destroying any measure of real democracy should be evidence enough.
SOURCE
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Trump slams FBI, Obamacare in post-Christmas tweets
PALM BEACH, Fla. — After a quiet Christmas Day, President Trump was back at work Tuesday — on Twitter.
Trump began his day criticizing the FBI and claiming the now-famous dossier containing allegations about his connections to Russia and possible coordination between his campaign and the Kremlin is a "pile of garbage." Trump, who is vacationing at his private estate in Mar-a-Lago, appeared to be watching and quoting from the morning cable news show "Fox and Friends" while tweeting.
"WOW, @foxandfrlends ‘Dossier is bogus. Clinton Campaign, DNC funded Dossier. FBI CANNOT (after all of this time) VERIFY CLAIMS IN DOSSIER OF RUSSIA/TRUMP COLLUSION. FBI TAINTED.’ And they used this Crooked Hillary pile of garbage as the basis for going after the Trump Campaign!," Trump tweeted.
The Hillary Clinton campaign and Democratic National Committee helped fund the dossier, which was first published by BuzzFeed. Officials have said some of the information has been corroborated, but other parts — including the most salacious claims about Trump — remain unverified.
SOURCE
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For more blog postings from me, see TONGUE-TIED, EDUCATION WATCH INTERNATIONAL, GREENIE WATCH, POLITICAL CORRECTNESS WATCH, AUSTRALIAN POLITICS, and Paralipomena (Occasionally updated), a Coral reef compendium and an IQ compendium. (Both updated as news items come in). GUN WATCH is now mainly put together by Dean Weingarten. I also put up occasional updates on my Personal blog and each day I gather together my most substantial current writings on THE PSYCHOLOGIST.
Email me here (Hotmail address). My Home Pages are here (Academic) or here (Pictorial) or here (Personal)
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27 December, 2017
Trump coins show that Trump widens the range of the possible
The news about the Trump presentation coins was a good laugh. They are twice as thick as ones by previous Presidents and instead of being nickel-silver are -- OF COURSE -- in gold, presumably gold-plated. Trump has always liked gold. It is his trademark color.
And the media went wild about how crass and vulgar it all is. The man has no taste, no restaint!
And the lack of restraint is the key. Nothing conventional or accepted restrains him. He does what he thinks is a good thing, regardless of any convention. He is extraordinarily independent. He has clearly had a life in which he didn't need to seek approval from others. He gained all the acceptance he needed just by being himself.
And American society in general and the Presidency in particular had become heavily tied up in conventional expectations about what you could and could not do. And, unfortunately, many of those constraints have come from the Left and have been genuinely oppressive.
But Trump has burst the barriers wide open. The Leftist constraints are going at a great rate and other ways of doing things are now possible. His coins are a graphic symbol of that. Who can doubt, for instance, that future Presidents will tweet? They will undoubtedly do it more cautiously but they will do it. It will even be expected now as evidence of frankness and openness.
So expect more and more shrieks from the media as Trump steadily normalizes more and more of what was once forbidden or at least heavily decried -- JR
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Excellent Christmas day news
The US should completely withdraw from this corrupt and biased body
The U.S. will cut its 2018 contribution to the United Nations by $285 million—nearly 25 percent -- an announcement that comes days after more than 120 nations criticized the United States for its decision to recognize Jerusalem as the capital of Israel.
Ambassador Nikki Haley made the announcement Sunday, but specifically blamed the world body for its budgetary excesses without making a specific reference to last week's vote on President Donald Trump's controversial Jerusalem decision.
"The inefficiency and overspending of the United Nations are well known. We will no longer let the generosity of the American people be taken advantage of or remain unchecked," Haley said in a statement announcing the cut to the U.N.'s overall $5.4-billion budget. "This historic reduction in spending—in addition to many other moves toward a more efficient and accountable U.N.—is a big step in the right direction."
Haley said there might be further budget cuts in the future. President Trump's proposed 2018 spending budget would end funding for U.N. climate change programs and would cut funding to the United Nations Children’s Fund, also known as UNICEF, by 16 percent.
Trump has long discussed cutting U.S. contributions to the U.N., and Haley hinted that the current administration could be motivated by a lack of support for its efforts around the world, specifically after the Jerusalem vote on Thursday.
"The United States is by far the single largest contributor to the U.N. and its agencies," Haley at the time. "We do this because it represents who we are. It is our American way. But we'll be honest with you. When we make generous contributions to the U.N., we also have a legitimate expectation that our goodwill is recognized and respected."
SOURCE
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Nikki Haley, the Trump administration's breakout star
by Jeff Jacoby
AMONG THE LOW POINTS of the Obama administration's final weeks was its refusal to veto a blatantly anti-Israel resolution in the UN Security Council.
When Nikki Haley attended her first Security Council session a few weeks later as the new ambassador under President Trump, she promptly reversed course. "I am here to emphasize," she told reporters, "that the United States is determined to stand up to the UN's anti-Israel bias."
Haley lived up to that promise on Tuesday, when she vetoed a resolution demanding that the Trump administration rescind its decision recognizing Jerusalem as Israel's capital. She followed up her veto with formal remarks calling the resolution "an embarrassment" to the UN and scolding those who "presume to tell America where to put our embassy." On Twitter the next day, Haley laid down a marker ahead of Thursday's vote on the topic in the UN General Assembly.
"When we make a decision . . . abt where to locate OUR embassy, we don't expect those we've helped to target us," she tweeted. "On Thurs there'll be a vote criticizing our choice. The US will be taking names."
Reckless and counterproductive? Hardly. Haley's performance at the UN has been a joy to behold. The former South Carolina governor, who came to the job with no foreign policy experience, has turned out to be a natural — behind the scenes no less than in the spotlight.
This fall, Haley succeeded in winning unanimous Security Council approval for economic sanctions on North Korea in response to its continuing nuclear belligerence. Displaying a knack for political deal-making, she initially proposed a package of sanctions so severe that Russia and China would doubtless have vetoed them had they been put to a vote. Then she set out to negotiate a compromise — dropping demands for a total oil embargo, for example, but digging in on other restrictions. "That made it possible for both China and Russia to join the consensus," reported The Nation, a journal far from friendly to the Trump administration. "Haley got a unanimous 15-0 'yes' vote against North Korea, an outcome that sent a message of unity" to Pyongyang.
Last week she did it again, winning unanimous Security Council approval for a new layer of sanctions on North Korea.
Nearly a year into the job, America's ambassador to the UN comes across as refreshing, unabashed, principled, and savvy. She is one of the most popular officials in a historically unpopular administration. "The breakout star of Trump's Cabinet," CNN calls her.
This would be impressive under any circumstance. It's especially so in the Trump presidency, which has been very rough on the reputations and careers of numerous high-level officials. It's even more remarkable given Haley's own history with Trump. She publicly opposed his presidential bid, urged Republicans not to "follow the siren call of the angriest voices," and endorsed Marco Rubio in the South Carolina primary. After Trump won that primary, he lashed out on Twitter: "The people of South Carolina are embarrassed by Nikki Haley!" (Her unruffled response: "Bless your heart.")
Trump holds grudges, yet he made Haley a key diplomatic face of his administration. Trump hates to share the spotlight, but he has done nothing to impede Haley's celebrity. And while the president has publicly rebuked or undercut other Cabinet members, including Secretary of State Rex Tillerson, he hasn't done so to Haley — not even when she has expressed views and taken stands that are quite different from his.
Which she has. Haley has loudly denounced Russia's continuing aggression in Ukraine, vowing that sanctions would never be lifted until Crimea is restored to Ukrainian control. Despite Trump's open embrace of Vladimir Putin, Haley warns bluntly: "We cannot trust Russia. We should never trust Russia."
Haley vigorously castigates dictatorships for their human rights abuses, something that neither Trump nor Tillerson considers a priority. "For me," Haley stresses, "human rights are at the heart of the mission of the United Nations."
On most issues, of course, Haley supports the president, as all ambassadors do. "I don't go rogue on the President," she has said. But she has figured out how to distance herself from Trump even when defending him. During the furor over banning travelers from several Muslim nations, Haley publicly justified it as a security measure. But she immediately and more memorably added that it would be "un-American" to "ever ban anyone based on their religion."
Haley plainly outshines Tillerson, a hapless if well-meaning secretary of state who has managed to wow neither the president nor the public. Tillerson brought an admirable international business resume to the job, but he lacks the political skills that Haley acquired during her meteoric rise from total unknown — she was the bookkeeper for her mother's clothing business — to governor of South Carolina. Haley has quickly acquired the foreign-policy fluency in which she was totally deficient a year ago. It is quite plausible that Trump will ask her at some point to replace Tillerson at the State Department.
Critics treated Haley's warning that the US would be "taking names" on the UN's Jerusalem resolution as an appalling diplomatic gaffe. It wasn't. The best UN ambassadors have always known that the job entails more than behind-the-scenes wheeling and dealing: It calls for the vigorous defense of moral truth as well. Like Adlai Stevenson, Daniel Patrick Moynihan, and Jeane Kirkpatrick, Haley has shown that she can be effective in the UN while bluntly decrying the lies and prejudices that sully it. Her first year on the job has been brilliant. Whatever Trump may have gotten wrong, his choice of Nikki Haley was a masterstroke.
SOURCE
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Congress repeals individual mandate, first step of ending Obamacare
This will kill off Obamacare. Insurance firms will now be able to balance their books only by hiking their already high premiums and deductibles. That will make health insurance unaffordable for just about everyone. Even the RINOs won't be able to defend Obamacare after that
Americans for Limited Government President Rick Manning praised efforts by Congress and the Trump administration to repeal the individual mandate under the health care law:
"Thanks to President Trump and Congress, the tyranny of the individual mandate is coming to an end, which penalized individuals if they chose to opt out of purchasing health insurance. As a result more than 6 million Americans were being penalized more than $3 billion a year.
Now, starting in 2019, every American will once again have what they are entitled to by right, a choice to participate in the insurance market. No more guaranteed customers. Now companies will have to compete on price to attract individuals to their plans. This is the first step to repealing the health care law. Ending the individual mandate takes away the cornerstone of Obamacare, and is another promise kept by President Trump and Congress. Although it is disappointing that the repeal will not occur for another year, this is a giant step in the right direction for the American people."
SOURCE
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For more blog postings from me, see TONGUE-TIED, EDUCATION WATCH INTERNATIONAL, GREENIE WATCH, POLITICAL CORRECTNESS WATCH, AUSTRALIAN POLITICS, and Paralipomena (Occasionally updated), a Coral reef compendium and an IQ compendium. (Both updated as news items come in). GUN WATCH is now mainly put together by Dean Weingarten. I also put up occasional updates on my Personal blog and each day I gather together my most substantial current writings on THE PSYCHOLOGIST.
Email me here (Hotmail address). My Home Pages are here (Academic) or here (Pictorial) or here (Personal)
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24 December, 2017
MERRY CHRISTMAS AND A HAPPY NEW YEAR to all those who come by here
In case anybody is wondering, my surgery went off without a hitch and I am already as right as rain again. For any curious minds, I have put up a detailed account on my Personal Blog
I want to mention something that seems to have passed almost unnoticed in this Christmas season. It occurred in the speech President Trump gave to coincide with the lighting of the White House Christmas tree. He at one stage invoked "Our Lord and saviour Jesus Christ".
In that utterance he expressed the core doctrine of evangelical Christians. That was unprecedented as far as I can remember. Even Reagan, an undoubted man of God, was not so emphatically Christian. Many Americans DON'T think Jesus is their Lord and saviour so it was a bold thing for a politician to say. It would have been a dagger aimed at the heart of Leftist anti-Christians and a warm glow in the hearts of committed Christians.
Trump got most of the evangelical vote last time so he will probably get all of it next time but it was clearly not a good electoral calculation. He stood to lose non-Christian voters while picking up only a few more Christians. So why did he do it? The speech was undoubtedly written for him by an evangelical pastor but he ad-libs readily so could easily have toned that bit down if he had wanted to.
The obvious reason is that he believed what he said. Trump is amazing the way he speaks his mind. He is clearly no career politician.
But I think there is a second reason. Christians have copped so much abuse and condemnation in recent years that they deserved some support -- and Trump gave them that. He validated their beliefs and principles. It told them that the days of travail are easing. And if it stabbed at the anti-Christian left, it was about time they got some heat back. It was justice for the meek.
And the media were amazingly silent about it. They criticized a few minor details but ignored the Christian invocation as far as I could see. Maybe they were wary of antagonizing Christians
And how splendid that Trump finally got most of his tax reforms through. It was like herding cats but it was done. The reforms hit a lot of targets but one that I think has not been mentioned as much as it should is the drastic cut to the company tax. The tax went from high down to middling by international standards. Tax cuts in general stimulate economic expansion but this one is particularly stimulatory. Where the old tax was a big disincentive to overseas investment, the new tax should unleash a flood of overseas investment into the USA -- meaning lots of new jobs and government revenue. It might even enable paying off some of the Federal debt -- JR.
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God First Means America First
Yaacov Ben Moshe
As much as I have always tried to confine my reasoning, observation and writing to secular and factual areas, I often wind up with this (mostly unexpressed) thought: "Only God can help us now."
I have known that if I were to write it or even just say it out loud, it would sound like despair and resignation- but it is not. It is really just my belief that if our fellow Americans, inheritors of the great Judeo-Christian culture, whether Jews, Christians or secularists could find a reconnection to The Divine many of our worst problems would just evaporate. I am not talking about a specific religion or even, necessarily, a belief in "God" as such. All that is required is an appreciation of the divinity behind the miracle of creation. It is only with faith in the creator as a force for good and order, that we can hope to dispel the moral relativism and post-modern sectionalism that are daily degrading our culture. In the guise of justice and equality they are dissolving our commonality of interest and sapping our energy as a civilization.
This is still an upstart of a nation- the fastest growing, richest and most diverse country on the planet. There is more opportunity here for anybody than anywhere else in the world. In this age of globalist ennui, faltering faith, Islamic conquest, rejection of tradition and conceited intellect, we are still as Lincoln said," …the last best hope of earth". All we really need, in my opinion is a general reconnection to the source of all life and goodness. For inspiration I look, as I often do to the founding documents of our country and the framers who were inspired to create them.
When the founders of the US sought to create a new kind of nation, one more immune to corruption and abuse than any other in history, they did a profoundly revolutionary thing. They sought a higher authority to overrule the "rights of kings"- an even higher authority than the doctrine of any particular church. They assessed human nature as flawed and prone to corruption. So they also sought to avoid the rule of "a man" or a secular "theory of man" (socialism, fraternalism etc…). The result was a nation governed by three independent branches of government, empowered to counter-balance (read: stymie) the natural human drive to amass power and wealth. The higher authority that superseded royal prerogative, they called "natural law" not so much derived from God as it was from their understanding that every man may have his own "personal relationship" with The Creator. It is fortunate that Jefferson, Madison, Franklin and Washington were themselves men of complicated and subtle faith who were of such generous spirit that they could credit any other person of good faith with equal right to their way of worship.
Jefferson called upon "natural law" in the Declaration of Independence not only to sever the "right" of the British King to rule the American colonies, but to found the first nation in history that would set as its charter, every individual’s "right to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness". The founders called on the highest possible authority to construct our nation for a very important reason. They and their forebears were here on this wild continent because they had already disagreed with, fled and finally, revolted against kings and churches in "The Old World". They knew that without God, we are just so much meat- animated by dangerous proclivities, taking up space and making trouble. Yet they were also acutely aware that with any specific and organized God there would be unavoidable and ultimately fatal conflict over the exact description of that God and its laws. Only in the sometimes infinitesimal space between the personal God and doctrine is there a hope of finding a common ground for unity and mutual respect. The already disparate collection of religious mavericks, lumberjacks, northern farmers, slave-holding planters, self-sufficient pioneers and merchant traders needed to find that common cause to be worth fighting for for the new nation to survive. Otherwise they would be unable to resist conquest or co-option by the powers of The Old World. Without a higher binding principal they would have been left with only fear, envy and anger and their evil results. The founders provided a meaningful and successful framework by acknowledging the blessing that God’s love for the individual and his liberty could bring forth. They created a nation that mirrored that blessing or as Abraham Lincoln put it at Gettysburg: "…conceived in liberty and dedicated to the proposition that all men are created equal…,".
Lincoln was our president at the moment of the nation’s greatest peril and need. He staked everything on what he knew was right. He did so with the certain knowledge that God would bless his actions. Here is a bit more of the lines that I quoted a few words of above. It is from his address to congress about his forthcoming Emancipation Proclamation:
"We -- even we here -- hold the power, and bear the responsibility. In giving freedom to the slave, we assure freedom to the free -- honorable alike in what we give, and what we preserve. We shall nobly save, or meanly lose, the last best hope of earth. Other means may succeed; this could not fail. The way is plain, peaceful, generous, just -- a way which, if followed, the world will forever applaud, and God must forever bless."
The blessing of whatever divinity you acknowledge must be used to help us blend that plain, peaceful, generous, and just way into our common existence here in America. If we can recreate that unity of spirit, we will continue to be safe, happy and secure at home and maybe even inspire some of our old allies and even, competitors to a better way. But we owe it to ourselves to do it in America First.
Epilogue:
Here is my best shot at a sales pitch for a revival of faith: Take God personally! Religious fundamentalists, agnostics and atheists are at a far higher risk of being a "glass is half empty" person. Having a belief in a loving Creator/God gives you a much better chance to be a "glass is half full kind of person". Having a personal relationship with that loving and transcendent God is the portal to becoming a "cup runneth over" being.
SOURCE
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The Reason the Left Gives Communism a Pass
Walter E. Williams
Before the question, how about a few statistics? The 20th century was mankind’s most brutal century. Roughly 16 million people lost their lives during World War I; about 60 million died during World War II. Wars during the 20th century cost an estimated 71 million to 116 million lives.
The number of war dead pales in comparison with the number of people who lost their lives at the hands of their own governments. The late professor Rudolph J. Rummel of the University of Hawaii documented this tragedy in his book "Death by Government: Genocide and Mass Murder Since 1900." Some of the statistics found in the book have been updated.
The People’s Republic of China tops the list, with 76 million lives lost at the hands of the government from 1949 to 1987. The Soviet Union follows, with 62 million lives lost from 1917 to 1987. Adolf Hitler’s Nazi German government killed 21 million people between 1933 and 1945. Then there are lesser murdering regimes, such as Nationalist China, Japan, Turkey, Vietnam, and Mexico.
According to Rummel’s research, the 20th century saw 262 million people’s lives lost at the hands of their own governments.
Hitler’s atrocities are widely recognized, publicized, and condemned. World War II’s conquering nations’ condemnation included denazification and bringing Holocaust perpetrators to trial and punishing them through lengthy sentences and execution. Similar measures were taken to punish Japan’s murderers.
But what about the greatest murderers in mankind’s history—the Soviet Union’s Josef Stalin and China’s Mao Zedong? Some leftists saw these communists as heroes.
W.E.B. Du Bois, writing in the National Guardian in 1953, said, "Stalin was a great man; few other men of the 20th century approach his stature. … The highest proof of his greatness [was that] he knew the common man, felt his problems, followed his fate." Walter Duranty called Stalin "the greatest living statesman" and "a quiet, unobtrusive man."
There was even leftist admiration for Hitler and fellow fascist Benito Mussolini.
When Hitler came to power in January 1933, George Bernard Shaw described him as "a very remarkable man, a very able man." President Franklin Roosevelt called the fascist Mussolini "admirable," and said he was "deeply impressed by what he [had] accomplished."
In 1972, John Kenneth Galbraith visited Communist China and praised Mao and the Chinese economic system. Michel Oksenberg, President Jimmy Carter’s China expert, complained, "America [is] doomed to decay until radical, even revolutionary, change fundamentally alters the institutions and values." He urged us to "borrow ideas and solutions" from China.
Harvard University professor John K. Fairbank believed that America could learn much from the Cultural Revolution, saying, "Americans may find in China’s collective life today an ingredient of personal moral concern for one’s neighbor that has a lesson for us all." By the way, an estimated 2 million people died during China’s Cultural Revolution.
More recent praise for murdering tyrants came from Anita Dunn, President Barack Obama’s acting communications director in 2009, who said, "Two of my favorite political philosophers [are] Mao Zedong and Mother Teresa."
Recall the campus demonstrations of the 1960s, in which campus radicals, often accompanied by their professors, marched around singing the praises of Mao and waving Mao’s "Little Red Book." That may explain some of the campus mess today. Some of those campus radicals are now tenured professors and administrators at today’s universities and colleges and K-12 schoolteachers and principals indoctrinating our youth.
Now the question: Why are leftists soft on communism? The reason leftists give communists, the world’s most horrible murderers, a pass is that they sympathize with the chief goal of communism: restricting personal liberty.
In the U.S., the call is for government control over our lives through regulations and taxation. Unfortunately, it matters little whether the Democrats or Republicans have the political power. The march toward greater government control is unabated. It just happens at a quicker pace with Democrats in charge.
SOURCE
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For more blog postings from me, see TONGUE-TIED, EDUCATION WATCH INTERNATIONAL, GREENIE WATCH, POLITICAL CORRECTNESS WATCH, AUSTRALIAN POLITICS, and Paralipomena (Occasionally updated), a Coral reef compendium and an IQ compendium. (Both updated as news items come in). GUN WATCH is now mainly put together by Dean Weingarten. I also put up occasional updates on my Personal blog and each day I gather together my most substantial current writings on THE PSYCHOLOGIST.
Email me here (Hotmail address). My Home Pages are here (Academic) or here (Pictorial) or here (Personal)
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21 December, 2017
Trump Has Made Our Government More Moral
Andrew Klavan
Here is a funny thing about the human mind: when we didn't see something coming, we often can't see it came. There's a good reason for this. Wrong predictions are an indication that there is something off or unrealistic about your worldview. When your predictions are vastly incorrect, you have to choose: will I paper over my mistakes and pretend to myself I was actually right in some way, or will I admit the error and adjust the way I look at life?
People almost never adjust the way they look at life. It would mean risking their sense of their own wisdom and virtue.
This is why so many pundits both on the left and right are completely blind to what happened this year in politics.
Donald Trump — a political neophyte, a New York loudmouth who plays fast and loose with the truth, a massive egotist and a not altogether pleasant human being — has delivered conservatives one of the greatest years in living memory and has made our government more moral in the process. The left and many on the right didn't see it coming because they hate the man. And because they didn't see it coming, they won't see that it's come.
The first assertion is easily proven. After a year of Trump, the economy is in high gear, stocks are up, unemployment is down, energy production is up, business expansion is up and so on; ISIS — which took more than 23,000 square miles of territory after Obama left Iraq and refused to intervene in Syria — is now in control of a Port-o-San and a book of matches; 19 constitutionalist judges have been appointed and 40 more nominated; the biggest regulatory rollback in American history has been launched (boring but yugely important); the rule of law has been re-established at the border; we're out of the absurd and costly Paris Accord; net neutrality, the most cleverly named government power grab ever, is gone; our foreign policy is righted and revitalized; and a mainstream news media that had become little more than the information arm of the Democratic Party is in self-destructive disarray. If the tax bill passes before Christmas, it will cap an unbelievable string of conservative successes.
Now you can tie yourself in knots explaining why none of this is Trump's doing or how it's all just a big accident or the result of cynical motives or whatever. Knock yourself out, cutes. For me, I'll say this. I hated Trump. I thought he'd be a disaster or, at best, a mediocrity. I was wrong. He's done an unbelievably great job so far.
But even more important is my second assertion. Our government is more moral now. How is this possible when Trump has sex with Vladimir Putin disguised as a Russian prostitute, when he kills and eats black people in his spare time, when he hates women and goes into insane temper tantrums fueled by 48 cans of Diet Coke a day? Okay, even leaving Maggie Haberman's fantasy life aside, Trump is not always statesman-like, not always nice to people and not always strictly honest.
But Trump's outsized New York personality and the feeling it evokes in us only obscure what he has done to the government he leads. As Aristotle knew, a thing can only be good if it fulfills its purpose. What is the moral purpose of government? We know the answer because our Founders told us in no uncertain terms.
"We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness. — That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men..."
That's right. Government does not exist to make us equal, but to treat us equally. It does not exist to make life fair, but to treat us fairly. Most importantly, it exists to secure our rights to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. Only in liberty can we treat each other ethically, because only in liberty can we make the choices that are the necessary condition for ethical life.
Trump has made our government more moral by making less of it: fewer regulations, fewer judges who will write law instead of obeying the law, fewer bureaucrats seeking to expand the power of their agencies, less money for the government to spend on itself. He has made government treat us more fairly and equally by ceasing to use the IRS and Justice Department for political ends like silencing enemies and skewing elections.
This is what moral government looks like. And if every male senator in America is grabbing the buttocks of some unsuspecting female while, at the same time, voting for more limited and less corrupt government, the senators are immoral, yes, but the government is more moral. That is why we should never let the leftist press game us with scandal hysteria, but should keep focused on voting in those who will help fulfill government's moral ends.
Trump has delivered conservatives an astoundingly successful year and made the government more moral in the process. You don't have to like him, to salute him. I salute him. Well done.
SOURCE
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Former White House Insider Explains What Trump Did to Devastate ISIS
President Donald Trump is defeating terrorism by allowing the military to do its job and by combating extremist ideology, a former adviser to the president said Friday.
"Our troops have been unleashed," Sebastian Gorka, former deputy assistant to President Donald Trump and counterterrorism adviser, said Friday at The Heritage Foundation.
"I had a tier one operator, meaning a top of the top special operations guy on detail from the National Security Council … come up to me in maybe week five of the administration and say, ‘Sir, you have no idea, no idea how the morale amongst our forces have skyrocketed because we are no longer micromanaged … and we are allowed to do our job, and it is clear the president trusts us," he said.
The contrast in strategy has made all the difference, Gorka said.
"We have been told by the last administration that ISIS is a generational threat … [that] our children, our grandchildren will be fighting ISIS jihadis decades from now," Gorka said. "Well, I guess the Trump administration has defined generations to last just a few months."
While President Barack Obama called ISIS a "J.V. team" in a January 2014 interview in The New Yorker, Gorka said Trump and his administration did what the Obama administration said would take years.
"There is no ISIS caliphate any longer," Gorka said. "We have liberated Mosul, we have have taken back Raqqa, the operational headquarters of ISIS, and just three weeks ago, the last ISIS stronghold in Syria has fallen as well."
Trump has been successful, Gorka said, by evaluating threats and responding to threats strategically.
Trump "looked at the threat we faced clearly as a war, not as some problem to be managed, but as a war, and not only that, he wants to win that war, and that is exactly what we have been doing as a nation," Gorka said.
U.S. Defense Secretary James Mattis has also been key in Trump’s successes in defeating terrorism.
"We have gone under Secretary Mattis from a strategy of attrition, he has said this openly, a strategy of attrition to a strategy of annihilation," Gorka said.
Trump has also made gains on winning the war on terrorism by acknowledging that there is an ideology behind it.
"Instead of looking at the religious ideology of groups like al-Qaeda and ISIS, the last administration was driven by very, very flawed concepts from social science, specifically social movement theory … [which] would have you believe that all violence of an organized nature is the result of physical and economic issues," the former presidential adviser said.
An example of this approach can be seen, Gorka said, in the comment made by Obama State Department spokeswoman Marie Harf that providing terrorists with jobs is a solution to defeating ISIS.
"We can help them build their economies so they can have job opportunities for these people," Harf said in 2015.
This type of approach is not part of Trump’s strategy to end terrorism, Gorka said.
"The political correctness from Day One is gone," Gorka said. "Why, look at the Riyadh speech … He went to the heart of the Muslim world, the area where Islam was founded, and … what did he say, he said, sort out your societies, he actually said rid your places of worship of the extremists, rid your societies of the terrorists," Gorka said.
His approach is even being accepted by unlikely recipients, according to Gorka.
"As an Arab woman told me two weeks later, that is the speech we have been waiting for for 16 years," Gorka said. "No brushing the issues under the carpet, [but] calling out our Muslim friends to start by cleaning out their own front doors, their own backyards."
Combating terrorist ideology will remain a priority for Trump in the future, according to Gorka.
"Killing terrorists is great, but it is not a metric of victory, because when you have enemies who have a massive recruiting pool, you can kill a jihadi with a drone strike and 20 guys tomorrow will volunteer to replace him," Gorka said, adding:
Just like during the Cold War, we must defeat the ideology. As St. John Paul and the great Margaret Thatcher and the great Ronald Reagan who delegitimatized the ideology of communism, we must do the same with the ideology of global jihadism.
SOURCE
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Trump: Strong Economy Equals Strong Security
His national security strategy is a stark reversal and repudiation of Obama's failed policy
President Donald Trump released his "America First" national security strategy Monday. The 68-page document sets forth a clear and sober understanding of the genuine threats the nation faces, as well as outlining a strategy for confronting these threats. In short, it represents both a reversal and a repudiation of U.S. policy over the previous eight years. Gone are the Barack Obama-era references to the supposed imminent security threat posed by climate change. So too is Obama’s self-defeating doctrine of "leading from behind." No more apologizing for American global power and influence. That nonsense has been replaced with a realistic view of the world and America’s roll as the world’s leader.
Trump’s policy is based on four fundamental principles: protecting the American people and homeland, promoting American economic prosperity, maintaining peace through strength, and expanding American influence across the globe. Strategically, the policy focuses on controlling America’s borders, rebuilding the military and taking the lead in both NATO and the UN. The document states:
"We must convince adversaries that we can and will defeat them — not just punish them if they attack the United States. We must ensure the ability to deter potential enemies by denial — convincing them that they cannot accomplish objectives through the use of force or other forms of aggression. We need our allies to do the same."
Trump’s national security strategy also doesn’t shy away from naming those nations that pose the greatest threat to the American way of life, namely China and Russia, as well as the "rogue regimes" of Iran and North Korea.
What may be the biggest break from Obama’s foreign policy, however, is Trump’s emphasis on establishing U.S. national security via building up the nation’s economic strength. Trump declared that "economic security is national security," explaining, "Economic vitality, growth and prosperity at home is absolutely necessary for American power and influence abroad. Any nation that trades away its prosperity for security will end up losing both." Obama was far more focused on social engineering in the military and redistributing the nation’s wealth to his favored constituents.
In his announcement, Trump summed up his primary national security perspective, stating, "We are calling for a great reawakening of America, a resurgence of confidence, and a rebirth of patriotism, prosperity and pride. And we are returning to the wisdom of our Founders: In America the people govern, the people rule and the people are sovereign."
SOURCE
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For more blog postings from me, see TONGUE-TIED, EDUCATION WATCH INTERNATIONAL, GREENIE WATCH, POLITICAL CORRECTNESS WATCH, AUSTRALIAN POLITICS, and Paralipomena (Occasionally updated), a Coral reef compendium and an IQ compendium. (Both updated as news items come in). GUN WATCH is now mainly put together by Dean Weingarten. I also put up occasional updates on my Personal blog and each day I gather together my most substantial current writings on THE PSYCHOLOGIST.
Email me here (Hotmail address). My Home Pages are here (Academic) or here (Pictorial) or here (Personal)
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20 December, 2017
Levin: The ‘So-Called’ Conservative Intellectual Movement Is on Life Support
Levin in fact concludes that "there really is no conservative intellectual movement" and that is right. But it is right for a good reason. It overlooks what an "intellectual" is. An intellectual is someone who puts a sophisticated gloss on a simple idea. And the great headquarters of simple ideas is the Left. They never think anything through, which is why their policies are always disastrous -- check Obamacare
In fact Leftists have only one idea: "If people won't behave the way we want, then we will MAKE them behave. Compared to the complexities of libertarian policy proposals, their ideas are childish and unoriginal.
So when someone comes along who can make Leftist thinking sound half-decent, he is greeted rapturously, hailed as an "intellectual" and given lots of publicity.
Conservatives don't need that. Between the Bible and America's founding documents, they have all the guidance they need to create a good society and a good life for its people. They already have policies and ideas that work and are well-known. Erudite men like Levin can help publicize those mighty founding ideas and show how they apply in modern times but that is just a badly-needed educative role, not any kind of new discovery.
I can't put it better than Reagan did:"In all of that time I won a nickname, 'The Great Communicator.' But I never thought it was my style or the words I used that made a difference: It was the content. I wasn't a great communicator, but I communicated great things, and they didn't spring full bloom from my brow, they came from the heart of a great nation -- from our experience, our wisdom, and our belief in principles that have guided us for two centuries."
So we can safely leave intellectuals to the Left. We don't need them. The average IQ of Leftists and Rightists is about the same but we apply our minds to practical problems and the real world, not high flown theories, speculations and justifications for hate.
On his nationally syndicated radio talk show Thursday, host Mark Levin began his program’s opening monologue on a somber note, suggesting that the "so-called conservative intellectual movement" is "on life support."
"[T]he so-called conservative intellectual movement is very weak right now – very weak," stated Mark Levin. "In fact, I think it’s on life support." Below is a transcript of Levin’s remarks from his show on Thursday:
"From time to time, often actually, I sit back and I watch what’s going on in the news or go on the internet and start reading various stories and so forth, and then I try to think back to history and philosophy and try to think back to our founding and try to make sense of it all.
"The vast majority of what comes across the television, what comes across the internet, what comes across the radio, in terms of news, is about the federal government. Maybe it’s about a congressman, maybe it’s about the Supreme Court, maybe it’s about a tax bill – it’s about the federal government.
"And this really is a massive alteration of what the founders of this country intended, that we would be spending so much time talking about the federal government, fearing the federal government, trying to win elections so we can control the federal government, expanding the federal government. It was never supposed to be this way.
"And you can see the deleterious effects.
"I said yesterday that, as a result of the conservative movement, we’ve had a lot of electoral victories at the federal level, but very few advances in terms of rolling back what the left has done and advancing liberty.
"And I believe that. I believe men and women, most of you, believe in America’s founding principles, believe in Americanism – Americanism.
"I also believe – it’s a sorry truth – that the so-called conservative intellectual movement is very weak right now – very weak. In fact, I think it’s on life support.
"You know, I write books about liberty, and I write books about the Declaration and the Constitution. And I write books about Supreme Court rulings. I write books about natural law and liberty and what all that means.
"The reason that most of these books sell about a quarter of a million copies or more every time I write them – which is by far the largest among conservatives, and yet receives virtually no attention among the fledgling, barely existing conservative intellectual movement – is because there really is no conservative intellectual movement. Or it’s very small, it’s very weak."
SOURCE
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A Constitutional Republic or a Police State?
Eight years of Obama's efforts to "fundamentally transform" America left corrupt law enforcement institutions
"I want to believe the path you threw out for consideration in Andy’s office that there’s no way [Donald Trump] gets elected — but I’m afraid we can’t take that risk. It’s like an insurance policy in the unlikely event you die before you’re 40." —one of the text messages sent by FBI official Peter Strzok to fellow FBI official and DOJ attorney Lisa Page, Aug. 15, 2016
After eight years of Obama administration efforts to "fundamentally transform" our nation, Americans may be facing the reality that our major law enforcement institutions are fundamentally corrupt, and that Democrats and their Leftmedia allies — now indistinguishable from one another — will attempt to minimize this damning reality.
Yet at some point, Americans are owed an explanation about an "insurance policy" that resembles a strategy to undermine the 2016 election. We can already surmise that "Andy" refers to Deputy FBI Director Andrew McCabe, whose wife received nearly $700,000 in campaign donations for her Virginia Senate race from Clinton allies — while he was supervising the Clinton email investigation.
That Strzok was removed from the Russian collusion investigation for this text and the approximately 10,000 other exchanges between him and his extra-marital partner — a removal exposed by leaks, as opposed to full disclosure by Special Counsel Robert Mueller — begets a reasonable question: Why does he remain at the FBI in any capacity?
Strzok was once the nation’s second-in-command for counterintelligence. Yet he carried on an easily traceable affair with a colleague — when he wasn’t busy leading the investigation into Hillary Clinton’s email scandal and critically editing the memo that gave former FBI director James Comey cover to exonerate her. Strzok also failed to charge Clinton associates Cheryl Mills and Huma Abedin, despite proof they were lying about having no knowledge of Clinton’s private server, even as he facilitated the indictment of Trump’s former national security advisor Michael Flynn — for the same crime.
Strzok was hardly an outlier. The stench of partisanship attaches itself to other members of Mueller’s team. Bruce G. Ohr, the former associate deputy attorney general and director of the Organized Crime Drug Enforcement Task Forces, was demoted after evidence revealed he was in contact with Fusion GPS, producer of the infamous Steele dossier paid for by the Hillary Clinton campaign and the DNC. (His wife, Nellie Ohr, was hired by Fusion GPS specifically to probe Trump). Andrew Weissmann emailed former acting AG Sally Yates to express his "awe" for her refusal to implement Trump’s legal travel ban. Aaron Zebley represented Clinton IT staffer Justin Cooper, the man who set up Clinton’s server — and smashed her Blackberries with a hammer. Jeannie Rhee was a Clinton campaign donor, represented the Clinton Foundation, and functioned as Obama deputy national security advisor Ben Rhodes’ personal attorney.
Page and Strzok had another equally damning exchange. "Maybe you’re meant to stay where you are because you’re meant to protect the country from that menace," Page stated in a text that also included a Trump-related article. "Of course I’ll try and approach it that way," Strzok replied.
Was Strzok’s aforementioned editing job that included changing the words "grossly negligent" to "extremely careless" in Comey’s memo part of that "approach?"
During a House Judiciary Committee hearing on Dec. 7, current FBI Director Christopher Wray insisted his agency is above reproach. Yet when Rep. Ron DeSantis (R-FL) asked him if the Steele dossier was used to spy on Trump associates, Wray refused to answer, citing the ongoing investigation conducted by the DOJ’s Office of Inspector General as the reason. Six days later, Deputy AG Rod Rosenstein declined to answer the same question — but insisted there’s no bias in Mueller’s investigation.
What about illegality? Trump attorney Kory Langhofer is accusing Mueller of illegally obtaining transition team emails from career staffer at the General Services Administration (GSA), including confidential attorney-client communications, in an apparent violation of the president’s Fourth Amendment rights.
Moreover, Wray and Rosenstein aren’t the only stonewallers. On March 20, 2017, Comey told Congress the counterintelligence operation into Russian collusion was recommended by Asst. Director of Counter Intelligence Bill Priestap, who was Strzok’s former boss. Priestap also decided not to inform congressional overseers "because of the sensitivity of the matter," Comey testified.
Disingenuous? Priestap’s boss was McCabe. McCabe’s boss was Comey.
McCabe was scheduled to testify behind closed doors before the House Intelligence Committee last Tuesday, but abruptly canceled due to a "scheduling error." Some members of the Committee apparently weren’t buying it. "McCabe has an Ohr problem," a congressional source surmised.
He is scheduled to testify this week, and while the Committee is prepared to subpoena McCabe to compel his testimony, one suspects he would invoke his constitutional right against self-incrimination — before stating anything that might reveal the nation is in the midst of the biggest political scandal in its history.
In the meantime, a trio of other stories buried by the Leftmedia are extremely troubling. First, former DNC Interim Chairwoman Donna Brazile revealed that after the DNC’s servers and computers were was hacked, they replicated the information on both — and then "destroyed the machines."
Those were the machines the DNC refused to turn over to the FBI for examination, and the agency’s assertion they were hacked by the Russians is based solely on the assessment made DNC-hired cyber security firm CrowdStrike.
Brazile insisted the DNC cooperated fully with the FBI, and that Comey’s testimony to the contrary was false. Yet Brazile is a documented liar who initially denied sending primary debate questions to Clinton’s campaign before admitting the truth.
Second, Robert Mueller was granted an ethics waiver to serve as special counsel — and the DOJ refuses to explain why they accommodated his blatant conflicts of interest.
Third, U.S. District Judge Rudolph Contreras, a 2012 Obama appointee — who also sat on the FISA Court while the Trump team was under surveillance by the Obama administration — recused himself from the Michael Flynn case without explanation.
With so many players and moving parts it’s easy to ignore the one individual who may have been the prime mover behind all of these machinations. "Lest we forget, President Obama had endorsed Mrs. Clinton … to be president," Andrew McCarthy writes. "Moreover, Obama had knowingly participated in the conduct for which Clinton was under investigation — using a pseudonym in communicating with her about classified government business over an unsecure private communication system."
Americans should also remember former AG Loretta Lynch’s airport tarmac meeting with Bill Clinton while his wife remained under investigation, and that she directed Comey to call that investigation a "matter." Emails released Friday by the DOJ reveal department officials were less concerned by the meeting itself than that it was leaked to the press and how to prevent further leaks.
Americans should also remember Obama National Security Advisor Susan Rice and U.S. Ambassador to the UN Samantha Power unmasked Americans.
Inspector General Michael E. Horowitz’s office has compiled more than 1.2 million pages of documentation, and even if the aforementioned players don’t cooperate, indictments are a real possibility. Thus, Americans will soon learn if we are still a constitutional republic — or whether the aforementioned "fundamental transformation" has succeeded beyond the former president’s wildest dreams.
Trump is said to be dismantling Obama’s "legacy." Taking down a potential police state should be priority number one.
SOURCE
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For more blog postings from me, see TONGUE-TIED, EDUCATION WATCH INTERNATIONAL, GREENIE WATCH, POLITICAL CORRECTNESS WATCH, AUSTRALIAN POLITICS, and Paralipomena (Occasionally updated), a Coral reef compendium and an IQ compendium. (Both updated as news items come in). GUN WATCH is now mainly put together by Dean Weingarten. I also put up occasional updates on my Personal blog and each day I gather together my most substantial current writings on THE PSYCHOLOGIST.
Email me here (Hotmail address). My Home Pages are here (Academic) or here (Pictorial) or here (Personal)
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19 December, 2017
Trump 'Miracle' — over 10 regulations killed for every new one, billions saved
The Trump administration has blown out of the water its goal of killing two Obama regulations for every new one created, resulting in an "economic miracle," according to a senior administration official.
Previewing President Trump’s Thursday announcement on his team’s success, a top official said that the reduction on regulations has topped 10 for every new one imposed.
"An economic miracle is happening," the official told Secrets. "We are pulling away from the economic headwinds we faced early and the tax cut will sustain our efforts. It’s a two for one punch."
Trump will reveal the exact number of regulations cut and the savings in a Roosevelt Room address.
When he came to office, he signed Executive Order 13771 to cut two regulations for every new one. Part of the goal was to overturn 600 last-minute rules imposed by former President Barack Obama at the end of his term, at more than a $15 billion price tag.
In office, Trump put his team on notice to cut regulations, and one department — Interior — has led the way.
While Congress moved first to cut regulations with the Congressional Review Act, the administration’s cuts are what is fueling the repeal of rules.
Neomi Rao, the head of the Office of Regulatory Affairs, will address the success in a Wall Street Journal column Thursday morning.
In it, she writes that legally required regulations will stay but those imposed by Obama not in law will be cut.
"Some regulations legitimately address important health, safety and welfare priorities identified by Congress. The Trump administration respects the rule of law and will not roll back effective, legally required regulations.
But in the previous administration, agencies frequently exceeded their legal authority when imposing costly rules. Some agencies announced important policy changes without following the formal rule-making process," she wrote.
Rao added, "Regulatory reform not only promotes individual liberty and a flourishing economy, it also supports constitutional democracy. Through OIRA's regulatory review process, we ensure that agencies stay within the legal authority given by Congress.
When the law provides discretion, we work with agencies to ensure that regulatory policy reflects presidential priorities. This executive direction makes the rule-making process democratic and accountable."
SOURCE
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Trump is the modern day JFK
How sad is it that the party that brought us John F. Kennedy's tax cuts, economic growth and higher wages is now the party that puts redistribution ahead of prosperity.
Not a single House Democrat on November 16 or Senate Democrat on December 2 voted for their version of the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act. Not one.
Some argue that the Trump tax cut will increase the deficit, but they should listen to the wisdom of JFK in 1962, when he, too, was battling a large deficit. President Kennedy declared at the New York Economic Club that "it is a paradoxical truth that tax rates are too high today and tax revenues are too low -- and the soundest way to raise revenues in the long run is to cut rates now.''
JFK knew that America's biggest problem was not the budget deficit but a growth deficit. And based on Donald Trump's proposed tax cuts, he seems to share JFK's wisdom.
Kennedy was, of course, proven exactly right. After the tax cuts were enacted after his death, America experienced one of the greatest periods of prosperity in our history.
Larry Kudlow's 2016 book "JFK and The Reagan Revolution" documented the post-JFK tax cut growth spurt. "The tax payments by the wealthiest filers nearly doubled," he wrote. "We had many quarters of 6% growth back then."
That same effect was duplicated when Ronald Reagan chopped the top income tax rate from 70 to 28% and the corporate rate from 46 to 34%. The share of taxes paid by the richest 1% rose around 6% from 1980 to 1990. Total tax revenues surged from $517 billion in 1980 to just over $1 trillion by 1990.
Which brings us back to the 21st century "progressive" Democrats?. In 1986, Reagan's tax reform bill passed the US Senate -- are you sitting down? -- by a vote of 97-3. This included the votes of such prominent Democrats as Bill Bradley, Ted Kennedy, Howard Metzenbaum, and Sam Nunn.
In 1997, Bill Clinton -- who admittedly raised taxes in 1993 -- signed into law one of the biggest bipartisan tax cuts in history, including a slashing of the capital gains tax. Although some argue that Clinton's tax cuts were not the cause of the economic prosperity that followed, I don't think it was a mere coincidence that America experienced a growth and employment boom so great that the budget reached a surplus.
Yet some seem to disregard this history and claim that tax cuts don't work. We also hear claims that Republicans are no longer the party of deficit reduction. Perhaps not. But the party has transformed itself into the party of growth. The Democrats are the new austerity party.
Democrats say they wish Trump had put forward a bipartisan tax plan, but what are the Democratic alternatives? Bernie Sanders' proposal would raise the top tax rate to over 50%. Can anyone with a straight face argue that this would help the economy?
The Democratic party today has repudiated JFK economics. Donald Trump has picked up that mantle.
As Kennedy said in his 1962 address on the state of the national economy, "Every dollar released from taxation that is spent or invested will help create a new job and a new salary."
Question: does that sound like Nancy Pelosi and Charles Schumer, or Donald Trump?
SOURCE
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Some end of year observations about Europe
By Rich Kozlovich (Rich is of Serbian origins so Europe is an interest of his. Serbs were passionately involved in both world wars)
One of the things everyone should easily be aware of - nothing is ever as it appears in politics, national or international. The only constant we can be assured of is - there will be change. Foundational systems for a stable world are crumbling, and although these structures continue to exist who can say for how long and what the outcome will be.
However, there are certain fundamentals that apply that allow for reasonable conclusions and anticipation of world events. One of them is - finances! Eventually everything has to be paid for! And that's not just a problem in the United States with over 20 trillion in outright debt, not to mention the financial obligations regarding Social Security and Medicare/Medicaid. That might be a total debt load of over 100 trillion dollars.
Europe is a mess. There's talk of their era of harmony being over, but I say - there never really was any real harmony right from the beginning. The Brits have decided to leave the EU, causing a ton of anxiety on both sides of this issue, but I believe it's sending shivers down the backs of all the EU leadership and bureaucracy as they see this as the tip of the iceberg, and the harbinger of their doom.
Poland and Hungary are in revolt and simply refusing to adhere to EU demands, especially involving immigration, and the EU leadership is outraged and mostly helpless as the Eastern periphery of the EU revolts. Poland is moving toward what most western nation would view as undemocratic by taking control over what's seen on television and heard on the radio. They also planning on taking control over the judiciary. That really doesn't sit well with the EU. But we also have to understand all the EU countries have taken positions that could absolutely be construed as anti-democratic.
The center of the EU - Germany, France, Belgium and the Netherlands - along with Sweden, Norway and most likely Denmark want the Eastern bloc punished for their refusal to go along with the wishes of these dysfunctional leaders who've been leading Europe into an eventual oblivion of Muslim domination. Eastern Europe will not accept these suicidal EU policies and eventually the Center EU may be left to form their own coalition and continue the policies that's destroying Europe.
But the Eastern EU countries, and I include the Czechs in this, are a far different breed from the center, or even Britain. They don't really like the idea of being a singular entity, they don't like Muslim immigration, and they like their individuality. Europe is a mismatch of different cultures and different languages. How do you unify that mix, especially when their citizens don't really want unification?
Did you know the United States is officially on the metric system? That became official decades ago. But no one wanted it, and we're still measuring in inches, feet, gallons, miles per hour, etc. Making something the law doesn't mean it will be reality.
Europe isn't a nation. Europe is nothing more than a geographical expression, as a result it's simply not possible for EU politicians to be effective and force their views on the whole. Politics is the art of the possible. The EU isn't possible, in spite of the fact the leadership wants and thinks in terms of being an entity that's in harmony - the rules imposed by the EU make that impossible.
In the meanwhile, Europe's economic growth has been meager and anti-immigration forces are garnering strength, all of which is tearing Europe apart. And that includes their financial wherewithal.
Europe is in deep debt and here's the reality. If there's a worldwide economic downturn the EU will cease to exist overnight instead of in five years - which is my prediction - the EU will cease to exist as we know it within five years. And countries like Greece will cease to exist as independent nations within 15 years, and it may be far less.
The United States is one of the few, and possibly the only nation, that can actually survive such a downturn as the US, being a natural capital generator due to many factors, has the ability to overcome the debt load we discussed at the beginning. The US is also capable of feeding itself, fueling itself, arming itself and defending itself, irrespective of what's going on in the rest of the world. Neither Europe, Russia, China or much of the rest of the world of international trade is capable of doing all four of those foundational things.
SOURCE
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For more blog postings from me, see TONGUE-TIED, EDUCATION WATCH INTERNATIONAL, GREENIE WATCH, POLITICAL CORRECTNESS WATCH, AUSTRALIAN POLITICS, and Paralipomena (Occasionally updated), a Coral reef compendium and an IQ compendium. (Both updated as news items come in). GUN WATCH is now mainly put together by Dean Weingarten. I also put up occasional updates on my Personal blog and each day I gather together my most substantial current writings on THE PSYCHOLOGIST.
Email me here (Hotmail address). My Home Pages are here (Academic) or here (Pictorial) or here (Personal)
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18 December, 2017
The Saker
A Saker is a large bird, a falcon. It is also the name of a popular Leftist blog. The blogger is anti-American, anti-Israel and quite paranoid: It was of course George Bush who blew up the twin towers.
The Saker is an example of an older Leftist type that precedes the modern-day Democratic party. As Trump points out, the modern-day Democrats are the establishment, the people in charge of most things in American life. They would still control the Presidency if they had put up Sanders against Trump but the personal ambition and deep pockets of Hillary Clinton derailed that.
But there is an older leftist type that is anti-establishment. They used to complain about "the system", "The bosses", "Wall St.", "Big business" etc. They yearned for a "workers' paradise". They saw themselves as ground-down and the victim of all sorts of conspiracies, including "The capitalist press".
And they still exist. A majority of Democrat voters still believe that George Bush blew up the twin towers. So how come those people now vote for the establishment? It's because the old and new Leftists have one thing in common: hate. And in classic Leftist style it is an inchoate hate, a hate that is always in its infancy and therefore flits here and there from one hate to another: One day it can be traditional marriage and the next it can be statues of Confederate heroes. As long as the Establishment can find hate-objects to campaign against, it sounds right to the old-style Leftist. He knows he will always be ground down so all he hopes for is that the status quo is under attack, somehow, somewhere.
But Trump has disrupted all that. He has declared that the establishment "Emperor" has no clothes. He has pointed out that the Left in fact control the country -- via the "swamp" -- and that they therefore are the proper hate-object. Instead of chasing after small hate-objects, he has given individual Leftists one big hate object to oppose. And for that reason, many former Democrats voted for him, upsetting all expectations. The combination of anti-authority Leftists and anti-authority conservatives gave Trump a big win.
Sadly, however, the anti-authority Leftist still believes in all the old nostrums, false beliefs about why the world is all wrong -- including "The Jews". He still believes that behind the facade we all see are Jews pulling all the strings of power and impoverishing little guys like him. And with Ashkenazi names like Blankfein and Goldman frequently found among the great powers of Wall St., one understands their mistake. They don't understand why the world really works so they resort to conspiracy theories.
And so we come back to The Saker. Both America and Israel are great conspiracies to him and he loves Hizbollah, Muslim terrorists. He is an "Anti-Zionist". And because the official Left no longer preach all the old suspicions, The Saker has got himself a big audience for his theories. He has become a spokesman for the non-establishment Left.
So it is amusing that some of his articles are half-right. One such article is "Fascism? Surely not", in which he correctly notes the pervasive control wielded by modern States and compares it with Fascism in the first half of the 20th century. He doesn't actually seem to know much about historical Fascism but notes the tendency of businesses to expand by mergers etc and become semi-monopolies in their respective fields. That is indeed not too different from the "corporations" set up by Benito Mussolini.
But the things he blames on corporations are eccentric. I quote:
"The issue of Vaccination is just one area of concern. There are many others that are appearing on the horizon that society has never had to think about or, debate before. The long term safety of water fluoridation, the spraying of our crops by Monsanto chemicals or, the consumption of GMO foods are just a few issues that raise serious concerns for millions of people. Instead of having a public and scientific debate to ensure safety, we instead see cover-ups, studies funded by the very Corporations who make the products or, paid experts appearing in the Media assuring us that everything is okay. Orwellian!"
He seems simply unaware that we have in fact already had a most extensive "public and scientific debate" about vaccination, fluoridation, GMO foods and chemicals on crops. Because he doesn't understand those subjects, he resorts to conspiracy theories.
So, Yes. Modern states are very reminiscent of historical Fascism, but it is not because of vaccination, fluoridation, GMO foods and chemicals on crops. It is because of government controls on so much in our lives. More on historical Fascism here
The Saker and his cohorts are in fact an example of the old saying that a little knowledge is a dangerous thing. A real understanding of the world we live in requires a knowledge of economics and psychology, particularly economics. And most people don't have that knowledge so give up attempting to understand why things happen. But the Saker and his cohorts don't give up. They are intelligent people with enquiring minds so try to find explanations that make sense to them. And conspiracy theories are a classic resort of those who don't actually understand.
They read far and wide and still find puzzles. And only a conspiracy theory explains why so many bad things happen for no apparent reason. So only a theory of bad men secretly getting together to do bad things fits the facts as they know them.
I found the same thing in my studies of neo-Nazis long ago. They were people with a real interest in world affairs and a considerable knowledge of what was happening. But only a Jewish conspiracy made sense of it all from their point of view.
For both the neo-Nazis and the Saker crowd, a course in economics would have given them a real understanding of what was going on -- but economics is hard. Ricardo's law of comparative advantage, for instance, runs up hard against everyday assumptions about trade -- so requires real thought. Commonsense will get you nowhere in economics
An example of how things are non-obvious in economics is the effects of the velocity of circulation of money. Major Douglas built his Social Credit movement on a misunderstanding of that and both Left and Right at times use that misunderstanding to demonize "the banks".
It is such a powerful misunderstanding that my own brother believed it for many years and I had the devil of a job to show him where the error lay. More on Social Credit here.
So one can't blame the Saker for his errors but it is a pity that he propagates them. Humility would better become him -- JR
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Tracking Progressivism's Progress
If the expression déjà vu had any competitors, likely they would be found in 2017’s proliferation of diatribes exploding from the lips of Donald Trump’s opponents. In fact, "opponents" barely touches the stridency of the president’s antagonists; enemies and death-wishers more fully embrace descriptions of journalists, academics, and Hollywood types — America’s true one-percenters — whose words often color the air bluer than the industries that employ them and the states they call home. Although the country has witnessed name-calling since George Washington was at the helm, one needs only to sample political invective from the past century to understand how far progressives have, well, progressed.
Consider, for instance, Woodrow Wilson’s offerings to enrich the dictionary definition of "scathing." His opponents were:
imbeciles, pinheads, dolts: Of all the blind and little provincial people, they are the littlest and most contemptible… They have not even got good working imitations of minds. They remind me of a man with a head that is not a head but is just a knot providentially put there to keep him from raveling out. But why the Lord should not have been willing to let them ravel out, I do not know, because they are of no use… They are going to have the most conspicuously contemptible names in history. The gibbets that they are going to be erected on by future historians will scrape the heavens, they will be so high… If I did not despise them, I would feel sorry for them.
Pretty strong stuff, and in 1919 one might surmise it hardly seemed logical that denunciations could get any worse. Except logic was another thing Wilson said he didn’t give a d—n about, and things did get worse as the progressive ethos permeated every institution in American society.
Which brings us up to now, 2017, a good time to take stock of progressivism’s progress, which the Media Research Center has recently catalogued. Joe Scarborough insists that insiders believe Trump is mentally unfit and suffering from early stage dementia. MSNBC acolytes label him as a madman, unhinged, not fully rational, and dangerously out of control. So far, largely Wilsonian, but it gets worse. Thus, CNN characterized Trump as a sociopath, malignant narcissist (how did it miss that with Obama?) who was vomited up by the electoral college system, constitutes a stain on our country and a danger to the world. Trump has done more damage than Osama bin Laden and ISIS combined; he is the Charles Manson of American politics, and by the way, only a white nationalist like Trump would condemn communism (nice to know where media sentiments lie, thank you). Naturally, these samplings do not include Keith Olbermann-types trying to obliterate Trump with F-bombs.
Nothing new here by today’s standards, but the important question is what to make of it. Several explanations come to mind. First, much foaming-at-the-mouth rage against Trump reflects infantilism of many commentators who never outgrew the "I’ll double dog dare you, stinkpot!" stage of intellectual development, especially among those in positions to avoid a contrary thought; their word toys changed, that’s all. Second, Freud’s concept of projection-transference, which has been part of public discourse for the past century, helps us better understand the fascist Left’s obsession with assigning characteristics to their opponents that define themselves. Calling Trump and Republicans fascist would be amusing if the politics and psychology behind the charge were not so serious, especially given progressivism’s totalitarian yearnings to control every aspect of American life — the very definition of fascism.
Now, President Trump utters many foolish things, but that isn’t the point; if it were, critics would have relished the inanities of Mr. Corpse-Man-in-Chief himself, Barack Obama, a glib mediocrity propelled by narcissism and media sycophancy into the presidency. But Obama was untouchable because he is "one of us," so progressive media launched a "slobbering love affair" instead.
Third, this point suggests that facts don’t matter, which Roger L. Simon explained in I Know Best: How Moral Narcissism Is Destroying Our Republic, If It Hasn’t Already. Moral narcissism embraces "ideas and attitudes, a narcissism of ‘I know best,’ of ‘I believe therefore I am.’" Simon states further, "It doesn’t matter that [your ideas] misfire completely, cause terror attacks, illness, death, riots in the inner city, or national bankruptcy. You will be applauded and approved of."
Trump fits into this scheme in that narcissistic elites believed, to thundering self-applause, that in 2016 America’s rubes got it colossally wrong; how dare they elect someone who like Woodrow Wilson doesn’t give a d—n about what they think! Thus, narcissists conjured Russian collusion and threw that into the mix as well; never mind that Hillary Clinton’s self-serving tenure as secretary of state produced one tragedy and embarrassment after another, including a real Russian debacle with national security implications. No matter, remember this impenitent shrew is still "one of us."
Unfortunately, a deeper tragedy awaits America when progressive narcissists resume power, which inevitably will occur. Joachim Fest, whose research into the Third Reich’s leadership leaves readers easily imagining him shaking his head in puzzlement, confessed that "The chronicler of this epoch stands almost helpless before the task of relating so much incapacity, so much mediocrity and insignificance of character, intelligibly to their extraordinary results."
So far, "extraordinary results" in America have included progressives’ efforts to end free speech, supersede the Constitution, and micromanage the economy — this is the short list. More extreme measures to expunge the Trump interregnum likely will follow, because if there’s one lesson progressives have taught us, it is this: Hell hath no fury like an elite scorned by its inferiors.
SOURCE
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For more blog postings from me, see TONGUE-TIED, EDUCATION WATCH INTERNATIONAL, GREENIE WATCH, POLITICAL CORRECTNESS WATCH, AUSTRALIAN POLITICS, and Paralipomena (Occasionally updated), a Coral reef compendium and an IQ compendium. (Both updated as news items come in). GUN WATCH is now mainly put together by Dean Weingarten. I also put up occasional updates on my Personal blog and each day I gather together my most substantial current writings on THE PSYCHOLOGIST.
Email me here (Hotmail address). My Home Pages are here (Academic) or here (Pictorial) or here (Personal)
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17 December, 2017
Is your blood pressure too high?
I don't intend to make this blog a medical one but I do at times mention findings from medical research that are of particular interest -- and blood pressure is very widely attended to. Many doctors measure it every time you visit. So it is clearly of some importance. In particular, high blood pressure is often a precursor to heart attacks and stroke -- which are no fun at all.
So it attracted a lot of controversy recently when the American medical authorities (The American College of Cardiology/American Heart Association (ACC/AHA)) increased the level at which blood pressure becomes a problem. Previously the maximum "safe" level was 140/90, which happens to be about where my blood pressure levels are. The new "safe" level is 130/80. Above that level you should receive treatment to bring your pressure down. That has of course thrown tens of millions into the "diseased" basket -- which produced howls of outrage from many sources -- including me.
A recent article In JAMA by a Dr. Philip Greenland has however hit back and said that the problem is the high level of unhealthy lifestyles among Americans -- including unhealthy diets. He said that the critics are shooting the messenger -- and his article is overall a good defence of the new guidelines
An article by the ever-skeptical Prof. John Ioannidis is more cautious, however. He doesn't altogether disagree with the new guidelines but points out that the reseasrch on whih it is based has some rather large flaws if used to guide policy. It is good reseearch but as a basis for public policy guidelins, extraordinary rigor is required in the research. The big flaw in the existing research being that it is based on an unrepresentative sample of people who already had heart symptoms. How far can we generalize from them? Possibly not at all and probably only weakly,
I would like to add some further criticisms: Some of the benefits of therapy were tiny. Adding one extra drug to a conventional regime, for instance, gave an improvement in health outcomes of just one half of one percent (0.54). That could well be illusory. The authors appear to rely on the finding being statistically significant but, given the large sample size (9361) practically everything is guaranteed to be significant. Statistical significance in that case means nothing.
One also has to be pretty suspicious about the proportion of the population who have ideal cardiovascular health -- from 0.5% in a population of African American individuals to 12% in workers in a South Florida health care organization. One understands that Africans do tend to die younger but saying that 99.5% of that population has some degree of risk seems extreme -- perhaps extreme enough for the finding to be ignored.
A final difficulty I see lies principally with Dr Greenland's article. He stresses the importance of a "healthy" diet in getting heart attacks down. That's a very conventional view but is it right? And if it is right, how do we know our diet is healthy? Up until a couple of years ago fat was regarded as bad and sugar as safe, but that has now been stood on its head. The opposite is now the accepted wisdom. So color me skeptical. If there is such a thing as a healthy diet, I doubt if anyone knows what it is. So what do I eat to avoid a heart attack? I don't think Dr Greenland or anyone else knows.
So I come down to the conclusion by Prof. Ioannidis, who states, "The ability to generalize these gains across diverse settings in clinical practice and to use limited resources wisely remains an open challenge." In other words, we don't know when someone would be helped by the new guidelines. They are a long way from gospel -- JR
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A treasonous President leaves a treasonous legacy
Peter Stzrok was the Deputy Assistant Director of the FBI and second in command over counterintelligence, since demoted. He is a liberal progressive who supported O. He felt that Trump was a security risk to the United States. He took it upon himself to ensure that Trump could never be elected. Once elected, he did everything in his power to undermine his presidency. He became a leading member of the Mueller team to indict Trump. He had a secret, untraceable phone with a direct link to Hillary Clinton.
We now know via text messages that Stzrok met with the Deputy Director of the FBI, Andrew McCabe, to discuss his "insurance policy" against Trump. This happened. This is direct evidence that our government colluded by overt acts to prevent Trump from being elected, and, once elected, to be unable to govern. It is an attempt to subvert the election process and to overthrow the existing government of the US.
Stzrok may have the best intentions and may think he knows what is best for the US, but he is guilty of treason. It is not his decision. He also intervened in the Clinton email scandal changing the phrase "grossly negligence" to "extremely careless." It was to ensure Clinton was not indicted, leaving Trump as the only choice. It is believed that he took the Trump dossier to the FISA court and knowingly used this fabricated document as justification to spy on Americans and the opponent's campaign.
Trying searching Bruce Orh on Google. The first time I did, I had to check a box indicating I was not a robot. There were no hits in the top ten. Bruce Ohr, the number four man in the DOJ, was recently demoted because of his collusion with the law firm and the British spy who fabricated the Trump dossier. As it turns out, his wife, Nellie, works for the law firm and worked with the US DOJ on Russian affairs. She was part of the team digging up dirt on Trump. This dossier was paid for by Clinton and the DNC as opposition research, then dressed up by the FBI and the DOJ as justification to spy on Americans. It appears the DOJ colluded with Hillary Clinton, the DNC, and the Russians to fabricate the Trump dossier. It is likely that Orh authorized payment for further research against Trump. Orh used his wife to dig up dirt on Trump then used the dossier to spy on members of the Trump team before and after the election.
Then we have the Mueller team. It is constructed primarily of Clinton supporters. The same posse that tried its best to prevent Trump from being elected is now its judge, jury, and executioner.
What we have here is the US government--namely the DOJ, FBI, and the CIA--picking winners and losers. We have a government willing to subvert the law and the US election process to prevent someone whom it believes is detrimental to leading the US from being elected. We have, in fact, a political campaign fabricating documents against its opponent and using the vast resources of the US government to use these documents to illegally spy on Americans and undermine a political opponent and to undermine the legitimate government of the United States. It is ironic that the government, in fact, was the one colluding with the Russian. It was not the Russians undermining the US election process; it was the Clintons, DNC, DOJ, FBI, and the CIA. This is the biggest political scandal ever, bar none. I don't even mention Sanders.
I won't go into the Uranium One deal here either, but it is another example of treason, selling out our national interest to the highest bidder for personal profit.
We are at an inflection point with the Deep State. The Deep State either wins and Trump is impeached, or the Deep State gets cleaned out. An Inspector General is looking into the allegations. I suspect it will find nothing, not because there is nothing there to find; it has to ensure that nothing is found. The Mueller investigation may turn out to be the best event ever for Trump. He may well be able to keep his promise to clean out the Deep State. In the end, only one will be left standing. It will either be Trump or the Deep State. Place your bets now. Who do I think will win? It is one man against the vast resources of the state and mainstream media. I think the odds of Trump winning are similar to him winning the election--highly improbable. If Trump wins, could it spell the end of the FBI as we know it? Its corruption knows no bounds. It must change.
For those liberal progressives that don't care as long as Trump is booted out of office, be careful what you wish for. What the liberal progressives can do at this point can be done against them in the future. It is treason of the highest order. It is a political scandal orders of magnitude above Watergate. People of all political persuasions should be concerned. Put your partisan politics aside and be objective. This cannot end well.
SOURCE
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The FBI: Has it Become the Secret Police?
Let’s not miss the most damning dimension of the texts between Strzok and Page. If you read all of their texts it becomes clear that their complaints about candidate Trump and his supporters are nothing more than ad hominem slurs - no different, really, than Hillary’s "deplorables" remark or Obama’s dismissal of Americans who "cling to their guns and religion" in bitterness. They are an attempt to dismiss a legitimate political movement and the, human aspirations behind, it with irrelevant but pungent slander. They are not texting about policy differences, social problems or even constitutional issues. In fact, these are law officers at the highest levels, who took an oath to protect The Constitution of the United States and they are actively engaged in discussing ways of denying a legitimate political movement its constitutional right to a free and fair election. This is dangerous and disturbing and it is a
This text from Strzok is the proof:
"I want to believe the path u threw out 4 consideration in Andy's office-that there's no way he gets elected-but I'm afraid we can't take that risk.It's like an insurance policy in unlikely event u die be4 you're 40"
The very idea of these three sitting in the office of the deputy director of the most powerful law enforcement agency spinning ideas for an insurance policy against the unlikely election of True against the howling headwinds of the mainstream press and other efforts of the establishment should scare anyone interested in preserving The Constitution. There are only two possible explanations for their behavior and the sinister direction of this and other tweets. One might be that they are so sure that they know better what is best for this nation and all her people that they feel it incumbent upon them to become our unseen benefactors - manipulating the results of elections and saving us from our own stupidity. The other, which I find more likely, is that they knew that they are not the pure hearted "public servants" that they portray themselves as and that they are at personal risk if the status quo of and the established power structure are shaken up.
I think the second explanation much more likely- because of the lack of substantive reasons and complaints in their texts and because the slander they throw at Mr Trump and his supporters fairly reeks of hatred, anger and vengeance. These are the blind feelings of a threatened animal who feels attacked or perhaps the cringing of a fraud in danger of being exposed. Whatever the case, they are not the arguments of a passionate believer in something good.
How did it come to this? How did the supposed protectors of our laws and civil order come to feel entitled to despise us and contemplate (we still don’t know the extent to which they did or didn’t carry them out) plans to thwart our political wishes? It is the arrogance of Progressivism, the entrenched interest of a class of political actors who see themselves as entitled to be our leaders and the loss of faith in any ethical, moral or constitutional standard.
SOURCE
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Trump Undoing Obama's 'Secret List of More Than 600 Regulations,' OMB Offical Says
In an Op-Ed on Wednesday, an Office of Management and Budget (OMB) administrator declared that the Trump Administration is undoing the "needlessly ‘secret’ list of more than 600 regulations" created by President Barack Obama before leaving office.
Neomi Rao, administrator of OMB’s Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs also said the Trump deregulation effort is ahead of schedule, in her Wall Street Journal column detailing plans to further eliminate burdensome government red tape:
"This week, the Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs released a status report on agencies’ progress on regulations. In only its first 10 months, the Trump administration has far exceeded its promise to eliminate two existing regulations for each new one—an unprecedented advance against the regulatory state.
"By comparison, in his final eight months, President Obama saddled the economy with as much as $15.2 billion in regulatory costs, while hiding from the public a needlessly "secret" list of more than 600 regulations. Reversing this trend sends a clear message to families and businesses: It’s OK to plan for the future without the looming threat of red tape.
"On Thursday OIRA will publish the administration’s first Regulatory Plan and Agenda, which covers all federal agencies for fiscal year 2018. The plan calls for the administration to drive already substantial reductions in regulatory costs even further. This is a fundamental shift from the policies of the past."
SOURCE
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For more blog postings from me, see TONGUE-TIED, EDUCATION WATCH INTERNATIONAL, GREENIE WATCH, POLITICAL CORRECTNESS WATCH, AUSTRALIAN POLITICS, and Paralipomena (Occasionally updated), a Coral reef compendium and an IQ compendium. (Both updated as news items come in). GUN WATCH is now mainly put together by Dean Weingarten. I also put up occasional updates on my Personal blog and each day I gather together my most substantial current writings on THE PSYCHOLOGIST.
Email me here (Hotmail address). My Home Pages are here (Academic) or here (Pictorial) or here (Personal)
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15 December, 2017
Let's Liberate Blacks From Left-Wing Politics
Star Parker
A new Quinnipiac University poll shows yet another perspective on the deep racial division in our country.
According to the poll, 86 percent of blacks compared to 50 percent of whites say that President Trump does not "respect people of color as much as he respects white people."
However, the partisan divide is even greater than the racial divide.
Ninety-one percent of Democrats compared to 12 percent of Republicans agree with the statement that President Trump is racially biased against people of color.
Bottom line: What we call a racial divide today is really a partisan divide.
Consider the remarks of Rep. John Lewis, who decided to not attend the opening of the new Civil Rights Museum in Mississippi because Trump announced he would attend. Lewis called Trump’s attendance "an affront to the veterans of the civil rights movement."
Or the president of the NAACP who also announced he would not attend because of Trump’s attendance. NAACP President Derrick Johnson called Trump’s attendance at the museum’s opening "a distraction from us having the opportunity to honor true Americans who sacrificed so much to ensure that democracy works."
But the "insult" to civil rights comes today from these very black leaders who claim to represent this movement.
The leaders who fought in the 1960s for civil rights fought for freedom and against stereotyping any individual because of their race. Freedom means living and thinking freely according to one’s judgment and conscience. That is, blacks may have conservative as well as liberal views.
In 2016, 8 percent of black voters, or 1.2 million people, voted for Donald Trump. But these 1.2 million blacks don’t exist in the view of today’s "civil rights" leaders.
Like the Dred Scott decision in 1857, which declared blacks inhuman and therefore not eligible to be American citizens, so-called black leaders of 2017 declare the same status for black Republicans and black conservatives.
About 15 percent of black men between ages of 18 and 54 voted for Donald Trump.
A black leadership whose primary interest is black freedom, rather than left-wing politics, would be asking why this many black Americans voted for Donald Trump.
More careful reasoning would shine light among black voters that we have a president who is an independent thinker and who has the courage to fight against an entrenched status quo. And fighting against an entrenched status quo is something African-Americans need.
As Housing and Urban Development secretary, Dr. Ben Carson is creatively finding new approaches to the largely failed government housing programs.
Republican Sen. Ted Cruz introduced an amendment to the tax bill just passed in the Senate that expands 529 college savings plans, which enables tax-free savings to pay for college, to include K-12 education. This will allow all parents to save tax-free and spend up to $10,000 per year on expenses for public school, private school, religious schools and home schooling.
This has huge implications for black parents and children. America’s most famous homeschooled American is Simone Biles, who won four gold medals in the 2016 Olympic games.
Soon the Trump administration and Congress will move on reforming our bloated and inefficient welfare programs. We are spending some $900 billion annually on anti-poverty programs that are helping to bankrupt the country and doing a very poor job improving the quality of life for the Americans these programs are designed to help. Black leaders should be anxious to participate in this vital and historic effort to do a much better job in how we assist low-income Americans.
It’s in the interest of every African-American to start thinking about freedom. This is what the civil rights movement was about. Not left-wing politics.
SOURCE
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Whistleblower Says CFPB Falsified Documents to Fine Payday Lender
A former employee of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau is calling for an investigation after accusing managers of falsifying documents to impose fines on a payday lender.
Cassandra Jackson, a former CFPB examiner in the southeast division, sent a letter last week to Attorney General Jeff Sessions also accusing managers of "widespread racism and gender discrimination."
Jackson said her superiors at the CFPB asked her to falsify documents during her investigation into a Texas-based payday lending company, Ace Cash Express.
"During the course of this examination, I was asked to change, remove, and otherwise falsify documents connected with this examination," Jackson said.
Jackson said she was asked to remove document evidence proving Ace Cash Express was complying with CFPB rules and to write a report including findings she knew to be "false and fabricated."
"I was specifically told to cite Ace Cash Express for a violation for which I had verified the company was in compliance and to state that Ace Cash Express did not provide, and that the CFPB did not receive, documents that would have satisfied the CFPB's guidelines, despite having received that information from Ace Cash Express," Jackson said.
Jackson refused to follow management's orders and said she was retaliated against for not falsifying the report. Managers then "proceeded to modify the report" and used it to "garner" a $10 million settlement with the company, even though Jackson said her report "did not find significant violations by the lender."
The CFPB took enforcement action against Ace Cash Express in July 2014. The CFPB said the company pushed "payday borrowers into a cycle of debt" and forced the company to offer $5 million in refunds and pay a $5 million fine.
Jackson said after refusing to falsify records, managers informed her she was "not performing" at grade level and subjected to disciplinary action.
"I encourage you to initiate an investigation into this matter, as well as civil rights violations at the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau," Jackson said. "During my nearly five years at the Bureau, I encountered widespread racism and gender discrimination from management."
Jackson said she was ultimately forced out of the CFPB due to an "incredibly hostile work environment and the retaliation I continued to receive from management at the CFPB due to the Ace Cash Express incident."
The U.S. Consumer Coalition, a consumer advocacy group, released the whistleblower letter.
"Ms. Jackson is a dedicated public servant who believes in the mission of the CFPB," said Brian J. Wise, president of the U.S. Consumer Coalition. "Unfortunately, her claims are all too familiar to the dedicated employees serving under the direction of CFPB management."
"We join Ms. Jackson in calling on U.S. Attorney General Jeff Sessions to initiate an investigation into this case as well as the dozens of cases of civil rights abuses we are aware of at the CFPB," he said.
SOURCE
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Congress must end Chain Migration and the Visa Lottery program
By Printus LeBlanc
On Monday, there was yet another terrorist attack in New York City. Luckily the incompetence of the extremist led to only five injuries, with many speculating it could have been much worse. This attack comes on the heels of another attack on Halloween day that left eight dead and 11 injured. Both attackers were brought to the country legally, thanks to an outdated immigration system. Congress knows what the problem is, why have they not fixed it?
The Department of Homeland Security has confirmed Akayed Ullah, the zealot from Monday’s attack, came to the U.S. in 2011 via an F43 "fourth preference" family immigration visa, also known as chain migration. F43 means he was in the most distant family-relationship eligibility category, i.e., the brother or sister of an adult citizen. It gets worse, the sibling that allowed Ullah to immigrate entered the U.S. via the Visa Lottery program. The Visa Lottery program is the same program that brought Sayfullo Habibullaevich Saipov to the U.S. In case you don’t remember; he is the terrorist from the Halloween day attack.
Why has Congress failed to act on chain migration and the Visa Lottery?
The latest immigration numbers show more than 60 percent of new legal arrivals to the U.S. since 1981 came here via chain migration. These are people who came here because they knew someone, not because they were a doctor, engineer, or scientist, but because they were related to someone else. At a time when Silicon Valley is screaming for higher skilled workers, does it make sense to prioritize loose family connections instead of labor market needs?
Amnesty advocates and the mainstream media will tell you there is no problem with chain migration or the Visa Lottery. It could be because they are too busy reporting on the diet coke habit of the President to notice, but if they opened their eyes, they would see a problem:
In 2002, Imran Mandhai pled guilty to conspiring to bomb a National Guard Armory and electrical power substations near Miami. Mandhai was in the country because his parents were Visa Lottery winners from Pakistan.
Syed Haris Ahmed was convicted of terrorism-related activities in the United States and abroad in 2009. Ahmed was another winner of the Visa Lottery system in Pakistan.
A few days before Sayfullo Habibullaevich Saipov’s truck attack on Halloween day in New York City, another Visa Lottery winner, Abdurasul Hasanovich Juraboev, was sentenced to 15 years in prison after pleading guilty to conspiring to provide material support to Islamic State terrorists.
In one of the more egregious examples of poor immigration management, a leader of Hamas, Mousa Mohammed Abu Marzook, received a Green Card through the predecessor program to the Visa Lottery. He was finally deported for terrorist activities in 1997.
In July 2002, Egyptian national, Hesham Mohamed Ali Hedayet, opened fire at the El Al Airlines ticket counter at LAX airport, murdering two ticket agents and wounding three others. He came here via tourist visa in 1992, claimed political asylum, then granted Lawful Permanent Resident status after his wife won the Visa Lottery in 1997. This happened despite being arrested in Egypt for being a member of Al-Gama’a al-Islamiyya, a group supported by Al-Qaeda.
Another falsehood spread by amnesty radicals is the economic argument. Activists will often argue that immigration legal and illegal is a net positive for the economy. When you look at the data, the case doesn’t hold up.
Illegal immigration alone is costing the U.S. taxpayer $135 billion a year in medical care, education, and law enforcement costs. A 2012 study found that 51 percent of households headed by an immigrant used welfare. The federal government spent almost $500 billion on welfare programs in the same year the study was done. How much of that went to immigrant households?
Despite the glaring need to end chain migration and the Visa Lottery program, Congress has yet to act. The Democrat Party is happy with the status quo because they get to import people that need government assistance, and people that need government assistance are more likely to vote Democrat. Republican leadership is in love with the 2012 election autopsy report, even though Trump proved everything in the report wrong with his election.
However, thanks to the election of President Trump the idea of a common-sense immigration policy that puts the needs of Americans first is on the horizon. While the pro-amnesty crowd want the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) program to be made into law, President Trump is standing firm. Any deal that includes DACA must include the elimination of chain migration, the Visa Lottery, and a border wall.
In an interview with Laura Ingraham, Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) seemed to be coming around to the idea also stating, "I agree with Cotton and Perdue…Chain Migration, doing something about the Diversity Visa Lottery, there are plenty of changes to the legal immigration system that should be added to any kind of a DACA fix that we do."
McConnell was referring to the RAISE Act. Legislation introduced earlier this year by Sens. Tom Cotton (R-Ark.) and David Perdue (R-Ga.) that would slash chain migration, eliminate the Visa Lottery program, and return the U.S. to a merit-based immigration system.
Americans for Limited Government President Rick Manning has long been a proponent of overhauling the failing immigration system stating, "Yesterday’s horrific attempt at mass murder by a person who came from Bangladesh via chain migration underscores the importance of ending both the visa lottery system and chain migration. It is absurd that when one member of a family wins the lottery to be able to legally come to the U.S. that every extended relative is put to the front of the line for future immigration. It is in both U.S. national security and economic interests to have an immigration system that prioritizes those with needed skills and experience. Any discussion of immigration law changes must begin with ending chain migration, building the wall and securing the border before any other considerations."
Chain Migration and the Visa Lottery program, two pieces of a broken immigration system coming together to put American lives in danger. U.S. immigration policy must be based on what is best for the U.S., not what is best for the incoming immigrant. Local, state, and federal resources are stretched too thin as it is. It makes no sense economically to import people that cannot support themselves and are going to depend on a system on the verge of collapse. President Trump won the election with a message of putting Americans first, it is time for Congress to live up to their end of the deal.
SOURCE
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For more blog postings from me, see TONGUE-TIED, EDUCATION WATCH INTERNATIONAL, GREENIE WATCH, POLITICAL CORRECTNESS WATCH, AUSTRALIAN POLITICS, and Paralipomena (Occasionally updated), a Coral reef compendium and an IQ compendium. (Both updated as news items come in). GUN WATCH is now mainly put together by Dean Weingarten. I also put up occasional updates on my Personal blog and each day I gather together my most substantial current writings on THE PSYCHOLOGIST.
Email me here (Hotmail address). My Home Pages are here (Academic) or here (Pictorial) or here (Personal)
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14 December, 2017
Is it possible to boost your intelligence by training?
Some actual science from Salon
Scientists achieved astonishing results when training a student with a memory training program in a landmark experiment in 1982. After 44 weeks of practice, the student, dubbed SF, expanded his ability to remember digits from seven numbers to 82. However, this remarkable ability did not extend beyond digits – they also tried with consonants.
The study can be considered the beginning of cognitive training research, investigating how practice in areas ranging from music to chess and puzzles impacts our intelligence. So what’s the state of this research 35 years later – have scientists discovered any foolproof ways to make us smarter? We reviewed the evidence to find out.
The topic of cognitive training is still very controversial, with scientists expressing opposing views about its effectiveness. Enthusiastic claims about the effects of cognitive training programs usually follow the publication of a single experiment reporting positive findings.
Much less attention is paid when a study reports negative results. This phenomenon is quite common in many areas of social and life sciences and often provides a biased view of a particular research field. That is why systematic reviews such as ours are essential to rule out the risk of such bias.
Making sense of conflicting evidence
In a new paper, published in Current Directions in Psychological Science, we synthesize what the reviews say about several cognitive training programs. Our main method was meta-analysis – that is, a set of statistical techniques for estimating the true overall effect of a treatment.
To begin with, music expertise has been associated with superior memory for music material (notes on a stave). Remarkably, music experts exhibit a superior memory even when the musical material is meaningless (random notes). In the same vein, musical aptitude predicts music skills such as pitch and chord discrimination.
However, music instruction does not seem to exert any true effect on skills outside of music. Indeed, our meta-analysis shows that engaging in music has no impact on general measures of intelligence, when placebo effects are controlled for with active control groups. Music training does not affect either cognitive skills – fluid intelligence, memory, phonological processing, spatial ability and cognitive control – or academic achievement. These outcomes have been recently confirmed by other independent labs.
The field of chess presents an analogous pattern of findings. Chess masters’ exceptional memory for chess positions is renowned. However, to date, chess training appears to exert only a small effect on cognitive and academic skills. What’s more, almost none of the studies reporting such effects actually used a control group – suggesting that the results were mainly due to placebos (such as being excited about a new activity).
Similar results have been observed in the field of working memory training. Working memory is a cognitive system, related to short-term memory, that stores and manipulates the information necessary to solve complex cognitive tasks. Participants undergoing working memory training programs systematically improve their performance in several working memory tasks. However, experimental groups consistently fail to show any improvement over active controls in other skills such as fluid intelligence, cognitive control or academic achievement. These findings were confirmed in three independent meta-analyses about children, adults, and the general population.
Video game training also fails to enhance cognitive function. In another recent meta-analysis, to be published in Psychological Bulletin, we show that video game players outperform non-gamers on a variety of cognitive tasks. However, when non-players take part in video game training experiments, no appreciable effect is observed in any of the outcome measures. This suggests the video game players may just have been better at those tasks to start with.
Another group of scientists also recently carried out a systematic review on general brain training programs (often including puzzles, tasks and drills). While the researchers reported some effects, they found an inverse relationship between the size of the effects and the quality of experimental designs of training programs. Put simply, when the experiment includes essential features such as active control groups and large samples, the benefits are very modest at best.
The problem with misinterpretation
A pervasive problem with cognitive training studies is that improved performance in isolated cognitive tasks is often seen as a proof for cognitive enhancement. This is a common misinterpretation. To provide solid evidence, it is necessary to investigate the effects of training programs on "latent cognitive constructs" – the variables underlying the performance in a set of cognitive tasks.
For example, working memory skill is a cognitive construct and can be measured by collecting data such as digit span. But if the training exerts an actual effect on the cognitive skill (construct) you should see the effects on many different tasks and latent factors – multiple measures of the same cognitive skill. And it is rare that these training programs are set up to do that.
That means that, to date, cognitive training programs do not even necessarily boost those cognitive functions that the trained tasks are supposed to involve. What is enhanced is just the ability to perform the trained task and similar tasks.
Researchers and the general public should be fully aware of the limits of benefits from training the brain. However, these negative findings shouldn’t discourage us from searching for ways to boost intelligence and other skills. We do know that our cognition is extraordinarily malleable to training. What we need now is more promising pathways to general cognitive enhancement rather than domain-specific enhancement. Our best bet for achieving that is probably by carrying out research on genetics and neuroscience.
SOURCE
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The Bureaucratic Blind Eye
A brand new scandal has broken out at the Department of Veterans Affairs, where the fingerprints of the department’s bureaucrats are all over the latest evidence of misconduct. USA Today’s Donavan Slack broke the story:
Neurosurgeon John Henry Schneider racked up more than a dozen malpractice claims and settlements in two states, including cases alleging he made surgical mistakes that left patients maimed, paralyzed or dead.
He was accused of costing one patient bladder and bowel control after placing spinal screws incorrectly, he allegedly left another paralyzed from the waist down after placing a device improperly in his spinal canal. The state of Wyoming revoked his medical license after another surgical patient died.
Schneider then applied for a job earlier this year at the Department of Veterans Affairs hospital in Iowa City, Iowa. He was forthright in his application about the license revocation and other malpractice troubles.
But the VA hired him anyway.
He started work in April at a hospital that serves 184,000 veterans in 50 counties in Iowa, Illinois and Missouri.
Some of his patients already have suffered complications. Schneider performed four brain surgeries in a span of four weeks on one 65-year-old veteran who died in August, according to interviews with Schneider and family members. He has performed three spine surgeries on a 77-year-old Army veteran since July—the last two to try and clean up a lumbar infection from the first, the patient said.
Schneider’s hiring is not an isolated case.
Slack goes on to document several other instances in which the VA’s bureaucrats knowingly overlooked the history of the medical professionals they hired, where evidence and findings of malpractice, license suspensions and other misconduct were either ignored or dismissed, where the consequences of those hiring decisions have negatively impacted the quality of treatment that America’s miltary veterans receive at the VA. The new scandal has already drawn bipartisan attention on Capitol Hill demanding an investigation.
Alas, the knowing hiring of individuals with shady track records is not an isolated to the bureaucrats at the VA. The scandal-plagued Internal Revenue Service has behaved similarly. Accounting Today‘s Michael Cohn reports:
The Internal Revenue Service rehired more than 200 employees with previous conduct and performance issues, according to a new government report.
The report, from the Treasury Inspector General for Tax Administration, found that 10 percent of the more than 2,000 former employees rehired by the IRS between January 2015 and March 2016 had been previously fired while under investigation for a substantiated conduct or performance issue.
Of the more than 200 rehired employees, 86 had been "separated" from the IRS while they under investigation for absences and leave, workplace disruption, or failure to follow instructions. Four had been terminated or resigned for willful failure to properly file their federal tax returns; while another four employees had been separated from their jobs while under investigation for unauthorized accesses to taxpayer information. On top of that, 27 former employees didn’t disclose a previous termination or conviction on their application, as required, but were nonetheless rehired by the IRS.
Both hiring scandals can be considered to be evidence of a culture of corrupt cronyism within the U.S. government, where its bureaucrats care first and foremost about putting their own interests before all others and to the exclusion of serving the interests of regular Americans. A third case of insider cronyism within a U.S. government agency can be found in recent news headlines involving the largely redundant Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, where the quitting head of the bureau attempted to install his deputy as his replacement in defiance of federal laws governing the filling of permanent vacancies, where the deputy’s legal claim to the position was subsequently refused by a federal court.
To quote Ian Fleming from his James Bond novel Goldfinger: "Once is happenstance. Twice is coincidence. Three times is enemy action." At what point will regular Americans receive both the answers and accountability they deserve from the bureaucrats in these agencies who claim to serve the public?
SOURCE
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Contra Activist Judges, It’s Not Discriminatory to Prohibit Transgender Individuals From Joining Military
On Dec. 11, a federal lower court judge in Washington, D.C., refused to stay her earlier Oct. 30 order blocking President Donald Trump’s Aug. 25 directive regarding transgender military service.
That directive, transmitted to the departments of Defense and Homeland Security, put to a halt the Obama administration’s June 2016 plan to allow transgender individuals to serve openly in the U.S. armed forces, beginning in July 2017 (but put on hold until Jan. 1, 2018, by Defense Secretary James Mattis).
If allowed to stand, Judge Colleen Kollar-Kotelly’s decision—coupled with similar Nov. 21 and Dec. 11 holdings in separate case by federal judges in Maryland and Seattle—would have enormous negative consequences.
It would mean that effective Jan. 1, 2018, the U.S. armed services would have to begin admitting transgender individuals, subject to certain guidelines. The armed services also (based on the ruling by the Maryland judge) would have to fund sex reassignment surgical procedures for military personnel—on the taxpayer’s dime.
As a legal matter, these federal court decisions are deficient. Judges have no business displacing the reasoned decision of the president, under his constitutional authority as commander-in-chief, to promote military readiness by establishing sound principles for eligibility to serve in the armed forces.
The lower court decisions acknowledge this presidential authority, but nevertheless claim that, by being prevented from serving in the military, transgender individuals would be denied "equal protection of the law" guaranteed by the Constitution.
But equal protection prohibits invidious discrimination based on immutable characteristics such as race—discrimination lacking any rational justification. It does not apply to rationally based noninvidious differentiation among classes of individuals needed to advance national goals, such as a strong military.
Rules denying military service opportunities to individuals who have serious medical problems (for example, heart disease, chronic asthma, or cancer) are not invidious discrimination—they are fully rational efforts to promote well-run and effective military services. Because individuals suffering from significant medical difficulties drive up costs and tend to impair combat effectiveness, it is perfectly rational to bar them from military recruitment.
These medical considerations apply directly to transgender individuals, who often must cope with serious physical and psychological problems
More HERE
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For more blog postings from me, see TONGUE-TIED, EDUCATION WATCH INTERNATIONAL, GREENIE WATCH, POLITICAL CORRECTNESS WATCH, AUSTRALIAN POLITICS, and Paralipomena (Occasionally updated), a Coral reef compendium and an IQ compendium. (Both updated as news items come in). GUN WATCH is now mainly put together by Dean Weingarten. I also put up occasional updates on my Personal blog and each day I gather together my most substantial current writings on THE PSYCHOLOGIST.
Email me here (Hotmail address). My Home Pages are here (Academic) or here (Pictorial) or here (Personal)
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13 December, 2017
Republicans are the workers
I don't think it is a big stretch to say that only the workers would buy an extended-cab pickup truck and those are the vehicles most seen in Republican neighborhoods. The idea that the car you buy tells you about the person is an old one. I think we have all heard that a man who drives a big, ostentaatious car is small somewhere else. And in my observation, short men almost always drive big cars. And in her classic book "Watching the English: The Hidden Rules of English Behaviour", anthropologist Kate Fox gives a very detailed account of what cars the various social classes in England drive. So the report below sounds pretty informative to me.
In a paper published earlier this year, Stanford computer scientist Timnit Gebru wrote about how neighborhoods can be evaluated by the makes and models of the cars parked in their driveways. The paper appeared in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences and it's an interesting read.
By analyzing the images already available as part of Google Street Views, the research team was able to identify which neighborhoods were Republican and which were Democrat as well as many other characteristics.
It determined that in those areas where the number of sedans is higher than pickup trucks, there’s an 88 percent chance of the district voting Democratic. Where there are more pickup trucks, there’s an 82 percent chance it’s a Republican-voting district.
The project devised an automated methodology that estimated the social characteristics of regions covering 200 U.S. cities based on analyzing 50 million images from Street Views. The images were originally created by Google sending cars through every neighborhood in the country, capturing images that are then displayed and accessed on Google Maps. Their automated process took two weeks, compared to 15 years if the images had been analyzed by hand.
The automated process to analyze the images was accomplished using computers and artificial intelligence software called "convolutional neural networks" that learned to recognize the vehicles by identifying unique features on each. That allows the computer to identify the make and model, year, value, and fuel efficiency of the vehicle.
To characterize the automobiles, they hired Amazon Turk workers to develop a library of car images from Edmunds.com, Cars.com, and Craig’s List. Their data came up with 2,657 visually distinctive categories, covering cars found in the U.S. since 1990.
So, what else did their analysis show from the automobile information? They came to the following conclusions, as quoted from the report:
Hondas and Toyotas most strongly indicate an Asian neighborhood.
Chryslers, Buicks and Oldsmobiles "are positively associated with African-American neighborhoods."
Pickup trucks and Volkswagens are associated with white neighborhoods.
Sedans are most associated with Democratic voter precincts; Republican-leaning precincts are most associated with extended-cab pickup trucks.
The researchers noted how this process could be a supplement or even a substitute for the way census data is now acquired because they found good agreement between their findings and those from the manual surveys.
They also noted that the U.S. spends more than $250 million each year on the American Community Survey (ACS) that sends workers door-to-door to interview the residents in each home in order to gather statistics relating to race, gender, education, occupation, and more. The Census Bureau conducts their survey once every 10 years. While both are more accurate, they each take a long time to analyze and don't pick up recent trends.
While a fascinating discovery, it will require a leap of faith and more validation for us to believe we are what we drive.
SOURCE
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More on Giovanni Gentile
Dinesh D'Souza breaks down the socialist history of fascism for Prager University.
"He’s a fascist!" For decades, this has been a favorite smear of the left, aimed at those on the right. Every Republican president — for that matter, virtually every Republican — since the 1970s has been called a fascist; now, more than ever.
This label is based on the idea that fascism is a phenomenon of the political right. The left says it is, and some self-styled white supremacists and neo-Nazis embrace the label.
But are they correct? To answer this question, we have to ask what fascism really means: What is its underlying ideology? Where does it even come from?
These are not easy questions to answer. We know the name of the philosopher of capitalism: Adam Smith. We know the name of the philosopher of Marxism: Karl Marx. But who’s the philosopher of fascism?
Yes — exactly. You don’t know. Don’t feel bad. Almost no one knows. This is not because he doesn’t exist, but because historians, most of whom are on the political left, had to erase him from history in order to avoid confronting fascism’s actual beliefs. So, let me introduce him to you. His name is Giovanni Gentile.
Born in 1875, he was one of the world’s most influential philosophers in the first half of the twentieth century. Gentile believed that there were two "diametrically opposed" types of democracy. One is liberal democracy, such as that of the United States, which Gentile dismisses as individualistic — too centered on liberty and personal rights — and therefore selfish. The other, the one Gentile recommends, is "true democracy," in which individuals willingly subordinate themselves to the state.
Like his philosophical mentor, Karl Marx, Gentile wanted to create a community that resembles the family, a community where we are "all in this together." It’s easy to see the attraction of this idea. Indeed, it remains a common rhetorical theme of the left.
For example, at the 1984 convention of the Democratic Party, the governor of New York, Mario Cuomo, likened America to an extended family where, through the government, people all take care of each other.
Nothing’s changed. Thirty years later, a slogan of the 2012 Democratic Party convention was, "The government is the only thing we all belong to." They might as well have been quoting Gentile.
Now, remember, Gentile was a man of the left. He was a committed socialist. For Gentile, fascism is a form of socialism — indeed, its most workable form. While the socialism of Marx mobilizes people on the basis of class, fascism mobilizes people by appealing to their national identity as well as their class. Fascists are socialists with a national identity. German Fascists in the 1930s were called Nazis — basically a contraction of the term "national socialist."
For Gentile, all private action should be oriented to serve society; there is no distinction between the private interest and the public interest. Correctly understood, the two are identical. And who is the administrative arm of the society? It’s none other than the state. Consequently, to submit to society is to submit to the state — not just in economic matters, but in all matters. Since everything is political, the state gets to tell everyone how to think and what to do.
It was another Italian, Benito Mussolini, the fascist dictator of Italy from 1922 to 1943, who turned Gentile’s words into action. In his Dottrina del Fascismo, one of the doctrinal statements of early fascism, Mussolini wrote, "All is in the state and nothing human exists or has value outside the state." He was merely paraphrasing Gentile.
The Italian philosopher is now lost in obscurity, but his philosophy could not be more relevant because it closely parallels that of the modern left. Gentile’s work speaks directly to progressives who champion the centralized state. Here in America, the left has vastly expanded state control over the private sector, from healthcare to banking; from education to energy. This state-directed capitalism is precisely what German and Italian fascists implemented in the 1930s.
Leftists can’t acknowledge their man, Gentile, because that would undermine their attempt to bind conservatism to fascism. Conservatism wants small government so that individual liberty can flourish. The left, like Gentile, wants the opposite: to place the resources of the individual and industry in the service of a centralized state. To acknowledge Gentile is to acknowledge that fascism bears a deep kinship to the ideology of today’s left. So, they will keep Gentile where they’ve got him: dead, buried, and forgotten.
But we should remember, or the ghost of fascism will continue to haunt us.
SOURCE
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California Still Trashing Workers’ Rights
The California Supreme Court has ruled that the state can impose a contract on employers, in the style of Don Corleone, a deal they can’t refuse. News stories hailed the unanimous ruling as a victory for "farmworkers" but it isn’t. The case deals with Gerawan Farming, a fruit grower in Fresno and Madera counties. A full 99 percent of their employees never voted for representation by the United Farm Workers union and many of the workers were not even born 1990 when the UFW contended to represent them. The UFW then disappeared from the scene but Gerawan still payed the highest wages in California agriculture.
Some 20 years later, the UFW had plunged to about 5,000 members, about the same number of workers Gerawan employs. The UFW demanded that Gerawan workers pay 3 percent of their wages to the union or lose their jobs. In 2013, the state Agricultural Labor Relations Board, all political appointees, oversaw an election. The Board then impounded the ballots, set aside the election and imposed a contract. "Nothing in today’s opinion prevents the employees’ ballots from being counted," Gerawan said in a statement. "We believe that coerced contracts are constitutionally at odds with free choice." Gerawan will appeal to the U.S. Supreme court but some realities are already evident.
The ALRB’s refusal to release the workers’ ballots from 2013 should come as no surprise in a state that refuses to release voter data to a federal probe of election fraud. Boards of political appointees imposing contracts is more akin to the Soviet collective farm system than a free agricultural and labor market. Only 16 percent of California workers are union members, so unions do not represent "labor" in any meaningful sense. Millennials may not be aware that United Farm Worker icons Cesar Chavez and Dolores Huerta derided migrant workers as "wetbacks" and "illegals" and deployed union goons to attack them.
SOURCE
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Republicans Win Historic Race… In Massachusetts
Don’t count the Republican Party out yet: a GOP candidate narrowly won a special election for a Senate seat in deep-blue Massachusetts.
Dean Tran will be the first Republican in recent memory to represent the uber-liberal Worcester-Middlesex in the Massachusetts State Senate.
Tran defeated Democrat Sue Chalifoux Zephir by 607 of the 15,627 votes cast. His strength mainly came from rural areas, as well as from his hometown of Fitchburg. Tran attributed his success to "visiting [voters] at their doorstep, and speaking to them on a personal level."
The historic victory and celebratory atmosphere were on display as Tran entered his victory party at the local River Styx Brewery, the standing-room-only crowd began chanting: "G-O-P."
SOURCE
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For more blog postings from me, see TONGUE-TIED, EDUCATION WATCH INTERNATIONAL, GREENIE WATCH, POLITICAL CORRECTNESS WATCH, AUSTRALIAN POLITICS, and Paralipomena (Occasionally updated), a Coral reef compendium and an IQ compendium. (Both updated as news items come in). GUN WATCH is now mainly put together by Dean Weingarten. I also put up occasional updates on my Personal blog and each day I gather together my most substantial current writings on THE PSYCHOLOGIST.
Email me here (Hotmail address). My Home Pages are here (Academic) or here (Pictorial) or here (Personal)
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12 December, 2017
From disbelief to dismissal, Alabama women who support Roy Moore have their reasons
Note: No One Ever Drowned in Roy Moore's Car
Patricia Brady remembers being in an elevator 50 years ago at her office building near Mobile. She was a young woman in her 20s, a graphic designer. A salesman stopped by her office with a product she’d been seeking — she can’t now recall what it was — but she remembers being so excited to get it. And then so terrified.
The salesman, she said, must have misread her enthusiasm for something else, and tried to grope her in the elevator on the way out. "I just said: ‘Whoa, whoa, what are you doing?’ " All these years later, the episode still bothers her. "It sticks with you," said Brady, 74.
But it hasn’t changed her politics. Brady is going to vote for Roy Moore on Tuesday, joining with the 39 percent of women who are, according to polls, standing with the Republican Senate candidate in Alabama despite allegations that he sexually assaulted teenagers, including one who was 14.
During this US Senate race, the sensational has overshadowed the myriad problems in one of the nation’s poorest states.
These female Moore supporters have had the same #MeToo moments that, according to a new Quinnipiac University poll, nearly half of all US women have experienced and are now rehashing the episodes in conversations with co-workers and girlfriends.
But many here are drawing a line of tolerance that favors Moore, viewing the allegations against luminaries like movie titan Harvey Weinstein and NBC star Matt Lauer as far worse than Moore’s alleged trawling for teenage girls in his hometown of Gadsden, Ala., when he was in his 30s. Moore has denied the allegations against him.
Call it a collective forgiveness, or a tendency to protect your own tribe. But many women supporting Moore excuse the Senate hopeful’s behavior as more a boorish phase in his past than predatory, if they believe the allegations at all. They are offering him the benefit of the doubt, and it could well be enough to hand him a seat in the US Senate in a special election race Tuesday against Democrat Doug Jones that polls show is close.
"Anything that happened, if it did happen, happened so many years ago," explained Brady, a retiree who spoke about the race at the Dragonfly Food Bar, a Mexican-Asian restaurant in downtown Fairhope. "He has been a happily married man for so many years," she added, pointing to Moore’s 32-year marriage as proof that, whatever happened in his past, he did settle down and change.
It’s not that women necessarily like voting for Moore. "I’ll vote for him because I don’t want the other guy to win," explained Rebecca Markham, 31, of Guin. She lined up with her family hours before a President Trump rally Friday in Pensacola, Fla., just 14 miles over the state line. She said she didn’t vote for Moore in the primary, but she questions the timing of the allegations. "If they happened so long ago," she said, "why didn’t they come up then?"
Baldwin County — a suburban and exurban county on the southern tip of the state, just to the east of Mobile Bay — is a place so conservative that three out of every four voters cast a ballot for Trump in the 2016 presidential contest. But last week there were many yard signs for Jones, the Democrat, along major roads and precious few for Moore.
Women working in a Waffle House in Daphne got into a heated debate with their male customers, who backed Moore, when the Senate race came up. "All of a sudden now, after 40 years? They’re going to bring something up," said one male customer who didn’t want to give his name.
"What about Bill Cosby?" retorted waitress Lynda Sage, as she refilled coffee. "Bill Cosby was almost dead by the time it came out," she said referring to allegations that the entertainer drugged and raped multiple women. "With all that’s going on," Sage said, "when there is some smoke there’s fire."
Jones’s campaign has attempted to capitalize on the discomfort many women here feel. His campaign ads feature quotes by prominent Republicans, including Ivanka Trump, disparaging Moore’s behavior. He holds weekly "Women’s Wednesdays" that focus on women’s issues. Last week the featured guest was Lilly Ledbetter, the Alabama native best known as the namesake of the Obama-era law reducing gender pay gaps.
Moore’s campaign, too, is trying to find prominent women to pitch its candidate. Gina Loudon, a former Trump media aide, spoke here last week at a Moore rally and reminded voters that Democrats, too, have a list of leaders who’ve treated women badly, labeling Democrats as hailing from the party of Bill Clinton, Senator Al Franken, Representative John Conyers, and former representative Anthony Weiner.
"Why would you listen to them about your own decision in this election?" Loudon asked supporters packed into a barn on a rainy evening. "I know the women of Alabama are just plain smarter than that."
Many women do see their support for Moore as a political calculation, just as women have long tolerated poor male behavior as an unfortunate price to pay to achieve some other goal in business or social circles.
That’s the case for Donna Horn, the head of the Pike County Republican Party, who said the primary reason that she’s backing Moore is her deeply held views on abortion. Moore opposes abortion, and Jones supports abortion rights. "That is a line I could not cross," she said.
Horn, 61, owns a Budweiser distribution company in Troy and has long worked in a male-dominated world. She says that she’s never had an experience she considers sexual harassment — but men have sometimes made comments, which she’s managed by swiftly shutting down the men who make them. "You have to handle that in a firm way," she said.
With Moore, she believes today’s standards of behavior are being unfairly applied to his past, noting that her own grandmother was 17 years old when she married a man in his late 30s who became her grandfather. "It just wasn’t that uncommon," Horn said. "I know it raises more eyebrows now than it did back then."
There’s also a sense among some of Moore’s supporters that, in their own personal experience, they’ve put up with plenty of borderline behavior that they didn’t consider sexual harassment or assault. Allegations alone, they said, shouldn’t end a man’s career.
"Being in the military for 20 years, you see a lot of stuff," said Cindy Dixon, 52, as she shivered in near-freezing weather in Pensacola, waiting outside the Trump rally on Friday night.
"I wasn’t sexually harassed," said Dixon, who was in the Air Force until recently, when she and her husband retired to Brewton, Ala. "I think people make too much out of this. It’s life."
And particularly since most of the allegations don’t include physical force, she doesn’t entirely blame Moore for his behavior. "I don’t see him as a child molester," Dixon said. "When you have 16-year-old girls flaunting their stuff, they’re not acting like children."
Blaming the accusers was a common theme among women voting for Moore. "If you run with the dogs, you’re going to get fleas," said Therese Gilmore, 59, who attended a rally here for Moore last week and owns a hair salon near Mobile. "Most of them put themselves in those situations."
More important to her, Gilmore said, is keeping a conservative vote in the Senate. Gilmore lamented the skyrocketing costs for health care — saying that friends are paying as much as $1,700 a month for coverage. And she’s worried about illegal immigration. She wanted the conversation to steer clear of the accusations.
"You need to get off all this bullcrap, because ain’t nobody interested," Gilmore told a Globe reporter asking about the allegations of sexual assault.
The most troubling accusation, even for the women who said they are voting for Moore, was that of Beverly Nelson, who accused Moore of trying to force her to perform oral sex in a car when she was 16. She offered what she called proof of their contact: A yearbook that he’d inscribed, signing it "Love, Roy Moore, D.A." (Nelson has since admitted adding her own notes below his signature.)
SOURCE
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‘Evil’ Tax Cuts? Nope, It’s Blue-State Panic
Wealthy blue-state foes of the GOP tax bill face a harsh look in the mirror
Ah, the holiday season. It’s a magical time, bursting with joy and merriment, the laughter of children, jolly parties, twinkling lights, mildly terrifying mall-dwelling Santas . . . and the faint sounds of caterwauling blue-state politicians shrieking that the GOP tax bill signals the end of civilization as we know it. Can you hear it? Fire and brimstone! The weeping and gnashing of teeth!
But hark, New York Times: What have we here? Why, it’s an analysis from your own news pages, dated December 5, with a doozy of a headline: "Among the Tax Bill’s Biggest Losers: High-Income, Blue State Taxpayers."
Well, this is certainly awkward. Let’s read on: "While the Republican tax overhaul would add up to an overall tax cut for individual taxpayers, at least through 2025, millions could still immediately receive a tax increase," notes the report.
Interesting! Who might those people be? "For many, particularly those in Democratic areas who earn $200,000 or more, the increase would come from the repeal of the state and local tax deduction, known as SALT."
If you know anything about California, you likely now know why good old Governor Moonbeam is freaking out. California may be filled with natural wonders, but it’s also a Democratic area chock full of people who earn $200,000 or more — and it’s also known for high state-level income taxes, with a top marginal rate of 13.3 percent. In the bad old days, Californians could count on simply deducting this highway robbery from their federal taxable income, masking the state’s shenanigans and blunting the financial pain. The GOP tax bill yanks what is essentially a federal subsidy away, forcing blue-state residents to face the reality of their local high-tax, high-spending regimes.
This is basic federalism at work. In theory, it should encourage accountability, particularly among high-tax states long dependent on the federal tax code to soften the blow. But as we all know, accountability is no fun. Public panicking and blaming "the rich" — this is all rather hilarious, given that high-income earners in blue states are the losers here, with middle-class taxpayers and small businesses largely on the winning end — is apparently a far more amusing use of time.
Thus, moving forward, when Jerry Brown moans about the tax bill benefiting "the rich," please loosely translate it as this: "Quick! We need a distraction! California has long been soaking its upper middle class. The GOP tax bill will make it crystal-clear that a significant chunk of this tax burden is coming from . . . from . . . US!"
Meanwhile, when New York governor Andrew Cuomo claims that the tax bill will "rape and pillage" his state — yes, he actually said this — and somberly declares that the bill "taxes the taxes that New York families pay," he’s laughably wrong, and he probably knows it.
Why should Americans who don’t live in New York have to cushion the state’s unwieldy, ossified tax-and-spend regime? True tax pillaging, after all, starts at home.
It’s not news to point out that people are fleeing blue states for red states. Recent reports show that Texas gained 1.3 million new residents over the past ten years. (Texas, of course, has no state income tax.) During the same time period, Illinois and New York lost more than 2 million.
The GOP tax bill, which rips the mask off of high state-tax regimes, could very well increase the bleeding. "High-income earners on the East Coast understand the implications of this," a friend who works in finance told me this week. Some of his contacts on Wall Street, he added, are toying with the idea of voting with their feet.
If blue states can’t get their act together soon, perhaps that’s not such a shabby idea. It would certainly send a message, loud and clear: "It’s not the tax bill that’s the problem, dear high-tax state governments. It’s you."
SOURCE
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For more blog postings from me, see TONGUE-TIED, EDUCATION WATCH INTERNATIONAL, GREENIE WATCH, POLITICAL CORRECTNESS WATCH, AUSTRALIAN POLITICS, and Paralipomena (Occasionally updated), a Coral reef compendium and an IQ compendium. (Both updated as news items come in). GUN WATCH is now mainly put together by Dean Weingarten. I also put up occasional updates on my Personal blog and each day I gather together my most substantial current writings on THE PSYCHOLOGIST.
Email me here (Hotmail address). My Home Pages are here (Academic) or here (Pictorial) or here (Personal)
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11 December, 2017
Major Leftist newspaper discredits itself
Do they WANT to be seen as purveyors of fake news? The reporter, Dave Weigel, is a deep-dyed Leftist from way back, previously involved in the Journolist hate-fest so his involvement now is no surprise
President Donald Trump took a Washington Post writer to task on Saturday after the reporter posted inaccurate photos of Trump's Friday Florida rally.
Dave Weigel, who writes about politics for the Post, tweeted a photo of a largely empty stadium with a quote from Trump: 'Packed to the rafters.'
Trump immediately hit back, quickly getting an apology out of Weigel - and demanded that the Washington Post fire him to boot.
Trump posted a screengrab of Weigel's Tweet, along with photos of him stood in front of a packed arena.
'@DaveWeigel @WashingtonPost put out a phony photo of an empty arena hours before I arrived @ the venue, w/ thousands of people outside, on their way in,' he wrote.
'Real photos now shown as I spoke. Packed house, many people unable to get in. Demand apology & retraction from FAKE NEWS WaPo!'
Weigel responded minutes later, saying he'd been notified of the error by DailyMail.com's US political editor, David Martosko, who attended the event.
'Sure thing: I apologize,' he wrote. 'I deleted the photo after @dmartosko told me I'd gotten it wrong. Was confused by the image of you walking in the bottom right corner.'
'An hour later he tweeted: 'It was a bad tweet on my personal account, not a story for Washington Post. I deleted it after like 20 minutes. Very fair to call me out.'
But apparently the mistake stuck in Trump's craw, and an hour after spotting the error he tweeted again
'.@daveweigel of the Washington Post just admitted that his picture was a FAKE (fraud?) showing an almost empty arena last night for my speech in Pensacola when, in fact, he knew the arena was packed (as shown also on T.V.),' he wrote. 'FAKE NEWS, he should be fired.'
At Friday's rally, Trump pointed to a CNN correction and other corrections and clarifications by news organizations in the past week.
The corrections came from stories that initially had been damaging to the president but didn't live up to the scrutiny.
SOURCE
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Another recent bit of fake news from the legacy media
The spectacle began on Friday morning at 11:00 am EST, when the Most Trusted Name in News™ spent 12 straight minutes on air flamboyantly hyping an exclusive bombshell report that seemed to prove that WikiLeaks, last September, had secretly offered the Trump campaign, even Donald Trump himself, special access to the DNC emails before they were published on the internet. As CNN sees the world, this would prove collusion between the Trump family and WikiLeaks and, more importantly, between Trump and Russia, since the U.S. intelligence community regards WikiLeaks as an "arm of Russian intelligence," and therefore, so does the U.S. media.
This entire revelation was based on an email which CNN strongly implied it had exclusively obtained and had in its possession. The email was a smoking gun, in CNN’s extremely excited mind, because it was dated September 4 – ten days before WikiLeaks began promoting access to those emails online – and thus proved that the Trump family was being offered special, unique access to the DNC archive: likely by WikiLeaks and the Kremlin.
It’s impossible to convey with words what a spectacularly devastating scoop CNN believed it had. There was just one small problem with this story: it was fundamentally false, in the most embarrassing way possible. Hours after CNN broadcast its story – and then hyped it over and over and over – the Washington Post reported that CNN got the key fact of the story wrong.
The email was not dated September 4, as CNN claimed, but rather September 14 – which means it was sent after WikiLeaks had already published access to the DNC emails online. Thus, rather than offering some sort of special access to Trump, "Michael J. Erickson" was simply some random person from the public encouraging the Trump family to look at the publicly available DNC emails that WikiLeaks – as everyone by then already knew – had publicly promoted. In other words, the email was the exact opposite of what CNN presented it as being.
SOURCE
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Not Tired of Winning Yet XXX
I am beginning to lose track of all the win gushing forth from the news headlines these days. This is number 30 in columns devoted to this topic.
In times gone by, whenever I was feeling too cheerful, I would listen to the news, until a proper sense of cynical gloom and despair and bitter wrath would settle on me as I watched everything I hold dear slowly or quickly being deconstructed by morally perverted Morlocks. Now, whenever I am feeling blue, I flip the news on, and wait for something to send my spirits soaring.
Here is a partial list of victories and wonders gathered in the last forty days.
A tax cut was passed by the House and Senate, and the politicians and pundits on the Left declare it to be Armageddon sure to result in thousands of deaths. I swear by the tongue of Saint John Chrysostom that I am not making that up.
The sweet savor of covfefe hangs over all, because this is the last in an endless series of things the Left said Trump could not do, which he then did do.
Even the depressing sex scandals cheer me. This is not because the news that Leftists in Hollywood or in DC are lecherous perverts unmoored by common standards of chastity and decency: we all knew that since the Sexual Revolution. The point of the Sexual Revolution was to allow men to act like satyrs and for feminists to act like nymphs. But instead of the Arcadian charm of ancient Greek, what we get is the mainstreaming of uncivilized and unchristian sexual behavior, and the normalization of indecency.
But the nymphs are not happy with the bargain. They are apparently unwilling to don knee pads and perform acts of sexual gratification on adulterous rape-happy sexual predators any longer. They want to be treated with the dignity and civility Christian gentlemen owe to Christian ladies, and not to be treated as, well, Mohammedans treat their female chattels.
Where this leads, heaven knows, but to see the downfall of tyrants is always a pleasure, even the petty tyrants of Hollywood moguls and their casting couch. Did I mention 28 Dem senators have called on Al Franken to resign? John Conyers has already been forced to resign.
The Senate tax-reform bill passed Dec. 1 eliminates Obamacare’s individual mandate, the linchpin of Obama’s government-controlled health-care system, which penalizes taxpayers for choosing not to buy health insurance. That nightmare is not over, but it is ending.
An official investigation into the riots on Charlottesville finally puts the blame surely where it belongs: instead of blaming Trump, as the news did and does, the investigation found that the city fathers and the mayor negligently if not maliciously arranged the protest and the violent counter protest to be held the same day, they forbade the police from donning riot gear, and the sheriff’s plan was to let the violence escalate sufficiently to declare the assembly unlawful, and unleash the riot squad. Another fake news story found to be fake.
Remember the clearly Constitutional and unarguably legal and lawful order of the Trump administration to ban travel from certain nations with whose subjects we are currently at war? Now, it seems, the obstruction of the pro-Jihad Leftists posing as judges has been stayed by the Supreme Court. That such judges have not yet been reprimanded, disbarred, or hanged as traitors disappoints me: such lawless activity by those entrusted to interpret the law is unforgivable. The fruits of Trump’s recent visit to China include a decision by the Chinese to slash import taxes on some 187 consumer goods. This promises to open their markets to our goods.
While the previous three U.S. presidents promised during their election campaigns to recognize Jerusalem as Israel’s capital, President Trump on Dec. 6 became the first to follow through. In his official order, Trump also ordered the U.S. Embassy to be moved to Jerusalem from Tel Aviv
Secretary of State Rex Tillerson announced Dec. 3 the Trump administration is withdrawing from the Global Compact on Migration
The Department of Homeland Security released figures Dec. 4 showing Trump is delivering on his pledge to more strictly control immigration and deter trespassers. I will not bore you with the numbers.
I will not bore you with economic numbers either, but do you remember when the Received Wisdom of the Elites all said Trump was a loon for saying his policies would usher in 3% growth? Do you remember all those voices telling us that stagnation was "the new normal"?
President Trump signed two executive orders Dec. 4 that gave back about 2 million acres of land to the state of Utah by modifying executive orders by President Obama. Trump reduced the federal government’s control of the Bear’s Ear National Monument to just 201,876 acres. He also reduced the Grand Staircase National Monument in Utah from nearly 1.9 million acres to about 1 million.
Attorney General Jeff Sessions announced Nov. 17 the Department of Justice will cease the practice initiated by President Obama of issuing "guidance memos" to enact new regulations that sometimes have had the effect of changing federal laws.
The federal government on Nov. 9 made public more than 13,000 additional documents from its files on President John F. Kennedy’s assassination, under orders from President Trump. It was the fourth released since October, when the president allowed the immediate release of 2,800 records by the National Archives.
EPA Director Scott Pruitt placed 66 new experts on three different EPA scientific committees who espouse more conservative views than their predecessors. Pruitt signed a directive Oct. 31 banning scientists who receive EPA grants from serving on the agency’s independent advisory boards.
SOURCE
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A great anecdote
Monica Crowley recently gave a speech at the David Horowitz Restoration weekend that has to be one of the best political speeches I have heard. She was fabulous. I reproduce below just her opening remarks
At lunch today, we had the great fortune to hear from Victor Davis Hanson who was talking about those of us who have been repeatedly judged for our support of Donald Trump by the self-righteous, self-described anti-Trump superiors, and it called to mind something that happened to me last July. I had an exchange with a Hollywood heavyweight and no, it was not Harvey Weinstein. That would have been an exchange of a different kind, and this Hollywood heavyweight approached me, and I got the whole condescending treatment about Donald Trump. I got the condescending tap on the arm. I got the look, like, feeling sorry for me that I was a Trump supporter, and he looked at me and he said, "Monica, you're a sweet girl and you're so smart. You can't possibly be for Donald Trump," and I realized in that second that I had a decision to make.
Was I going to go through the usual excuses, like, well, you know, I know, but I still...? I decided in that split second to own it, and I leaned into this guy and I said, "Are you kidding me? I freaking love Donald Trump," and to my great surprise, it completely disarmed him, and he stood back. He wasn't expecting it. I said, "Are you kidding me, I freaking love him, and if I had 100 votes, I'd spend all 100 votes on Donald Trump," and he was immediately taken aback, and he said, "Oh, no, no, no. No, don't get me wrong. I hate her. I just don't know if I can vote for him," and it completely wrecked his entire line of argument. It worked like a charm.
SOURCE
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For more blog postings from me, see TONGUE-TIED, EDUCATION WATCH INTERNATIONAL, GREENIE WATCH, POLITICAL CORRECTNESS WATCH, AUSTRALIAN POLITICS, and Paralipomena (Occasionally updated), a Coral reef compendium and an IQ compendium. (Both updated as news items come in). GUN WATCH is now mainly put together by Dean Weingarten. I also put up occasional updates on my Personal blog and each day I gather together my most substantial current writings on THE PSYCHOLOGIST.
Email me here (Hotmail address). My Home Pages are here (Academic) or here (Pictorial) or here (Personal)
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10 December, 2017
Profound Leftist loss of reality contact: Obama says Trump=Hitler
How could a courageous defender of Israel be like Hitler? Obama also knows that Trump is a capitalist, not a socialist like Hitler and himself. Obama is of course not the first with the Trump=Hitler accusation. I have commented on previous ones at length here
Obama's comment was enthusiastically and uncritically received in the media but it has its disturbing side. Loss of reality contact is the prime symptom of psychosis (insanity) but this loss of reality contact is probably just deliberate propaganda. Remember Bush=Hitler?
Obama is eloquent and smart, but he is playing to the dumbed down emotional image-conscious lefties who know nothing, and to the smarter hateful lefties who know the truth but don’t care about it, only about gaining leftist power, even by deception. Obama is a deceiver, a manipulator, and treacherous. Leftism is treachery. It consists of looking good while being evil)
According to Crain’s Chicago Business, on Tuesday night former President Obama compared the era of President Trump to Adolf Hitler's.
Greg Hinz, writing for Crain’s, said Obama spoke in a Q&A session before the Economic Club of Chicago, back in his home town. Hinz wrote that Obama resorted to the usual leftist rhetoric, intoning that the United States has survived tough times before, referencing Joseph McCarthy and former President Richard Nixon. Then he segued to the need for a free press in order to ensure the country’s survival, saying that he had difficulties with the press, as has Trump, but what he himself understood was "the principle that the free press was vital."
Hinz wrote that Obama continued that the danger is "grow(ing) complacent. We have to tend to this garden of democracy or else things could fall apart quickly." Hinz then reached the crux of the matter:
"That's what happened in Germany in the 1930s, which, despite the democracy of the Weimar Republic and centuries of high-level cultural and scientific achievements, Adolph Hitler rose to dominate," Obama noted. "Sixty million people died. . . .So, you've got to pay attention. And vote."
The bald comparison of Trump to Hitler is not surprising coming from the avatar of the Left; the Left has been promulgating the lie that Hitler was to the political Right and not the Left for at least 70 years.
But what is truly ironic is that Obama’s tenure had more than a few similarities to the early phases of Hitler’s Germany. Guess which figure championed universal health care, increased taxes on the rich so social welfare programs could stay afloat, and more government oversight of corporations? Which figure’s party wanted to make college more affordable, saying in the party platform that "the state is to be responsible for a fundamental reconstruction of our whole national education program, to enable every capable and industrious [person] to obtain higher education."
If you said both, move to the head of the class.
No one would accuse Obama of being Hitler, although the beginning of their tenures had some similarities. But for Obama to use the tired cliché that a right-wing leader resembles Hitler, whose own party referred to itself as the National Socialist German Workers’ Party, is nothing short of patently outrageous, false, and un-American.
SOURCE
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The real story about Roy Moore
Ann Coulter
Apparently, the GOP is now the party of CHILD MOLESTATION! At least the media tell me that’s the meaning of President Trump’s endorsement of Senate candidate Roy Moore.
Are we allowed to mention that Moore denies the charges?
It’s hard to disprove accusations from 40 years ago — that’s why we have statutes of limitations — but, despite that, there are a surprising number of problems with the allegations against Moore.
One accuser has been called a liar by her own stepson, who says he’s voting for Moore. Another neglected to mention that Moore sent her brother to prison.
In defense of one of Moore’s accusers, Gloria Allred produced a yearbook allegedly signed by Moore, apparently in two different inks and giving his title as "D.A." He was not the district attorney and didn’t sign his name that way. Allred refuses to produce the yearbook for handwriting analysis or to deny that it’s a forgery.
Contrary to what you have heard one million times a day on TV, there aren’t "multiple accusers." There are two, and that’s including the one with the fishy yearbook inscription whose stepson says she’s lying.
The other "accusers" claim he dated them when they were 16 to 19 years old and Moore was in his early 30s — or younger than Jerry Seinfeld was (39) when he dated 17-year-old Shoshanna Lonstein.
That would also make Moore 15 years younger than Bill Clinton when he had a 22-year-old intern performing oral sex on him in the Oval Office. Moore’s date "accusers" say he did nothing more than kiss them.
The media throw the dating claims in with the molestation claims so they can keep howling about "multiple accusers." In fact, only two women are alleging anything that, if true, would merit national attention.
TV anchors think it’s very clever of them to ask anyone who isn’t bowled over by the claims of Moore’s (two) accusers: So you’re calling the women "liars"?
Checkmate!
There’s a lot of room between HE’S A CHILD MOLESTER and THE WOMEN ARE LIARS.
They could be misremembering. They could be confusing Moore with someone else. They could be suggestible. They could be delusional. They could have repeated the story to themselves so many times that they believe it. They could be really, really disgusted with Jerry Seinfeld.
The main accuser has gotten a lot of her facts wrong, such as where she was living at the time (she moved to another town 10 days after meeting Moore); the corner where she allegedly met Moore for their liaisons (she named a corner more than a mile away from her house, across a busy intersection); and when she began to get into trouble with boys and alcohol (it was before meeting Moore, not after).
It was 40 years ago! But it’s just weeks before the election and that’s the media’s favorite time to produce wild accusations against Republicans.
Four days before the 1992 presidential election, Independent Counsel Lawrence Walsh dropped an indictment of Reagan’s defense secretary, Caspar Weinberger, which seemed to implicate President George H.W. Bush in a lie. Bush lost the election, and about a month later a judge threw out the indictment.
In the middle of the 2004 presidential campaign, CBS’s Dan Rather produced forged documents allegedly proving that President George W. Bush had shirked his National Guard service decades earlier.
In September 2006, just before the midterm elections, the media released GOP congressman Mark Foley’s creepy emails to House pages. No physical contact was alleged. The corpus delicti was that Foley told pages they looked "hot" in their soccer shorts.
The entire GOP was crucified by the media for not having discovered this "pedophile" in its midst. Republican congressmen who had never met Foley lost their seats because of the media’s timing of the email release.
More than 20 years earlier, a Democratic congressman, Gerry Studds, who had actually buggered a 17-year-old page, indignantly defied his House censure and proudly stood for re-election. His outraged Massachusetts constituents elected him six more times. Washington Post columnist Colman McCarthy denounced the "witch hunt" against Studds, saying his critics wanted "to torch the congressman for his private life."
When Studds died in 2006, The Washington Post’s headline on his obituary was: Gerry Studds; Gay Pioneer in Congress. The New York Times’ headline was, Gerry Studds Dies at 69; First Openly Gay Congressman.
Moore’s real crime is that he’s a believing Christian who goes around wantonly quoting the Bible on sodomy.
SOURCE
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Dershowitz: It's Not Obstruction of Justice for Trump to Exercise His Constitutional Authority
Retired Harvard Law School Professor Alan Dershowitz said a constitutional crisis would erupt if Congress tries to charge President Trump with obstruction of justice for exercising the authority granted to him under Article II of the Constitution.
He spoke to "Fox & Friends" on Monday morning:
You cannot charge a president with obstruction of justice for exercising his constitutional power to fire Comey and his constitutional authority to tell the Justice Department who to investigate, who not to investigate. That's what Thomas Jefferson did, that's what Lincoln did, that's what Roosevelt did. We have precedents that clearly establish that.
When George Bush the first pardoned Casper Weinberger in order to end the investigation that would have led to him, nobody suggested obstruction of justice. For obstruction of justice by the president, you need clearly illegal acts. With Nixon, hush money paid; telling people to lie; destroying evidence. Even with Clinton they said that he tried to influence potential witnesses not to tell the truth.
But there's never been a case in history where a president has been charged with obstruction of justice for merely exercising his constitutional authority. That would cause a constitutional crisis in the United States, and I hope Mueller doesn't do that and Senator Feinstein simply doesn't know what she's talking about When she says it's obstruction of justice, to do what a president is completely authorized to do under the Constitution.
Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D-Calif.) on Sunday told "Meet the Press" she believes Trump's firing of former FBI Director James Comey was obstruction of justice, and she said that appears to be the direction the investigation is heading.
Dershowitz on Monday said President Trump could have pardoned Flynn if he really wanted to end the special counsel's criminal investigation:
"He (Trump) would have pardoned Flynn and then Flynn wouldn't be cooperating with the other side, and the president would have had the complete authority to do so, and Flynn never would have been indicted, never would have turned as a witness against him," Dershowitz said.
"So I think the fact that the president hasn't pardoned Flynn, even though he has the power to do so, is very good evidence there's no obstruction of justice going on here."
Dershowitz also said Flynn was "right" to speak to the Russian ambassador during the transition and urge him to vote against a U.N. resolution criticizing Israel.
"I think he did absolutely the right thing by trying to stop the president, lame duck, from tying his hands."
SOURCE
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For more blog postings from me, see TONGUE-TIED, EDUCATION WATCH INTERNATIONAL, GREENIE WATCH, POLITICAL CORRECTNESS WATCH, AUSTRALIAN POLITICS, and Paralipomena (Occasionally updated), a Coral reef compendium and an IQ compendium. (Both updated as news items come in). GUN WATCH is now mainly put together by Dean Weingarten. I also put up occasional updates on my Personal blog and each day I gather together my most substantial current writings on THE PSYCHOLOGIST.
Email me here (Hotmail address). My Home Pages are here (Academic) or here (Pictorial) or here (Personal)
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8 December, 2017
Bannon tells Roy Moore's supporters: 'They want to take your voice away' -- and derides Mitt Romney
FAIRHOPE, Alabama. — It already felt a little like a victory party in Alabama Tuesday, where Senate candidate Roy Moore is suddenly feeling love from the Republican Party despite weeks of disclosures that he sexually pursued and assaulted underaged girls.
There was a barn packed, standing room only, with supporters. American flags and twinkling white lights decorated the interior, while rain occasionally pounded on a tin roof. And Stephen K. Bannon, the former White House strategist turned king-maker, was here to help push Moore over the finish line with his trademark defiance.
“They want to destroy Judge Moore. And you know why? They want to take your voice away,” Bannon declared.
“There is no better way to spend a rainy evening in Alabama than with the deplorables,” he said, playing to the antiestablishment crowd gathered to hear him Tuesday night.
Bannon also tore into former Massachusetts governor Mitt Romney, a Republican who is a sharp Moore critic and a possible candidate for Senate in Utah if incumbent Senator Orrin Hatch opts to retire.
“You hid behind your religion,” Bannon said of Romney, referring to his Mormon missionary work in the 1960s in France, which allowed him to win a draft deferment. “Judge Moore has more honor and integrity in his pinky finger than your entire family does.”
Bannon’s support in the contest against Democrat Doug Jones has been crucial for Moore, the former renegade state judge and Christian favorite who has been accused of sexually assaulting teenaged girls when he was a single man in his 30s. The contest, a special election set for Tuesday, is to replace Jeff Sessions who was tapped to be Trump’s attorney general.
Moore drew parallels between his race here and Trump’s 2016 contest. “He fought both the Democrats and the Republicans and became president of the United States,” Moore said.
“When he was elected I felt like a big weight had been taken off my shoulders. It felt like we had another chance. And do have another chance,” Moore said.
This week marked the beginning of an improbable turnaround, after the renegade Moore, and by proxy, Bannon, appeared headed for a repudiation just a month ago.
“Alabama isn’t sending no Democrat to the Congress,” said Les McMinn, 56, who held up a handwritten sign at Tuesday’s rally that read, “Thank you Lord Jesus for Roy Moore.”
Moore appeared to be in serious trouble after The Washington Post reported early last month that he had sexually molested a 14-year-old girl in the late 1970s and sexually pursued other teenagers. Another woman came forward at a press conference and said Moore sexually assaulted her in a car when she, too, was in high school. Many Republicans distanced themselves from Moore and called on him to drop out of the race.
But in a sign of how much the party has changed since Donald Trump’s 2016 election, the president turned the tide back in Moore’s favor two weeks ago, when he said Alabama voters should reject Jones, whom he described as too liberal. This week, Trump explicitly endorsed Moore, the Republican National Committee restored the spigot of campaign cash, and Mitch McConnell moderated his earlier rejection of Moore after the Post’s revelations.
Now Moore has reestablished a lead in the polls. If he wins, it will be seen as a bigger triumph for Bannon and his far-right movement that has inspired cadres of white nationalists than for Republicans in the Senate. One reason Bannon backs Moore is the sheer discomfort he will bring to Washington.
“He’s going to make McConnell’s life a living hell,” said Andrew Surabian, a former Trump White House aide and Bannon confidant.
Particularly in this moment of reckoning about sexual misconduct by powerful men, adding Moore to the Senate — with the president’s blessing — will further radicalize the Republican Party and redefine the boundaries of acceptable behavior for membership in the country’s most esteemed body, according to critics from both parties.
Moore moves the party so far away from the establishment that the previous rebels are suddenly seen as reasonable, Surabian said. “Roy Moore will normalize Ted Cruz,” he said, referring to the Texas senator whose antics contributed to a temporary government shutdown in 2013.
Trump, after initially waffling, gave Moore a full-throated endorsement on Monday, calling him from Air Force One to say: “Go get ‘em Roy.”
Last month, after the revelations of Moore’s alleged sexual misconduct, McConnell said that Moore should step aside. But on Sunday, on ABC’s “This week,” he declared, “Let the people of Alabama make the call.”
But the party is still not united behind Moore, whom many see as an incoming albatross for Republican senators. And Bannon gets the blame. Senator Jeff Flake of Arizona and Romney are among party leaders who have condemned Moore, and Bannon.
“What (Bannon’s) doing is trying to elect people to the US Senate who have one issue, that is to destabilize the leadership of Mitch McConnell,” said Scott Jennings, a Republican strategist and McConnell ally. “I happen to think it is a misguided goal.”
He noted that McConnell has delivered Trump some legislative victories, including Senate passage last week of a tax cut bill that would also repeal the federal mandate that Americans purchase health insurance, a key tenet of the Affordable Care Act. The GOP-controlled Senate has also confirmed a Supreme Court justice and a raft of judges to the federal bench.
Moore is still in a close fight with Jones. Polls are showing the Alabama race within the margin of error, which is in some ways stunning given that Trump won Alabama by nearly 28 percentage points.
Bannon, 64, took over Trump’s struggling campaign in August 2016 when polls suggested little room for a Republican victory. He went on to become Trump’s chief strategist in the White House.
But it’s been since leaving the West Wing in August that Bannon has emerged as a national figure in his own right. On Tuesday, Bannon announced he would return to hosting a morning radio show SiriusXM radio. That’s in addition to his perch atop Breitbart News Network.
SOURCE
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Trump Is Rolling Back Obama’s Last-Minute Land Grab. Here’s What Must Come Next
Today marked an important moment as President Donald Trump made much-needed changes to sweeping land use designations made under previous administrations.
The Trump administration listened to the combined voices of individual citizens, tribal members, small communities, and elected officials from the county, state, and federal levels. In doing so, Trump has responded to Utahns’ calls by dramatically reducing the size of both the Bears Ears and Grand Staircase-Escalante national monuments, which had a combined land mass larger than the state of Connecticut.
This is a good step forward in reforming a law that has too easily been abused to drown out the voices of the people who care most about these lands. Today marks a victory for the people of southern Utah who know and love their public lands the most.
Trump’s bold move to reduce the size of the Grand Staircase-Escalante and Bears Ears monuments is the result of a true grass-roots effort. Locals held rallies, lobbied their representatives, passed resolutions, fundraised, and so much more, traveling hundreds of miles to do so.
While Kane, Garfield, and San Juan counties celebrate, they understand that these two national monuments were just a symptom of a much larger problem.
Unlike previous designations, recent national monuments were not about protecting specific historic and cultural sites as outlined in the Antiquities Act. Instead, political gamesmanship, outdoor recreation, presidential legacies, climate change, and a host of other motivations drove the designation process.
The result is expansive national monuments that restrict access, weaken local economies, corrode rural communities, and put the very archeological resources they are supposed to protect at a greater risk of destruction.
Presidents of both parties have abused the Antiquities Act for decades and will continue to do so as long as they are allowed to designate national monuments unchecked with just the stroke of a pen.
It’s time that Congress act to transform the Antiquities Act into a law of the people, by the people, and for the people, where constitutional principles safeguard the environment, protect archeological sites, create abundant recreational opportunities, and secure the American dream for rural communities.
If there is no change in the Antiquities Act, Bears Ears, Grand Staircase-Escalante, and southern Utahns will be in danger of future unilateral action with every change of presidential administration. Hardworking Americans and our public lands deserve better.
Here’s what we propose. National monument designations and reductions should be approved by Congress and state elected officials. By integrating state leaders and Congress into the process, we’ll protect the will of the people from presidential overreach and the whims of centralized government.
No longer would Utahns sit on pins and needles waiting to see how a president changes the management of millions of acres. Instead, we can assure that local voices are prioritized over political and ideological interests with the democratic process as a central fixture in the future of our public lands.
We want to thank the Trump administration for finally listening to the voices of San Juan, Kane, and Garfield county residents and giving power back to the people. This is truly a step in the right direction.
SOURCE
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Illegal Alien Now Faces Federal Charges in Kate Steinle's Death
A federal grand jury in San Francisco on Tuesday indicted Jose Inez Garcia-Zarate for being a felon in possession of a firearm and ammunition; and for being an illegal alien in possessions of a firearm and ammunition.
On July 1, 2015, Garcia-Zarate fired the bullet that ricocheted and killed Kate Steinle, a woman walking on a San Francisco pier with her father.
Last week, a San Francisco jury acquitted Garcia-Zarate on murder and manslaughter charges, but it did convict him on state charges of being a felon in possession of a firearm. He is still in state custody.
Garcia-Zarate had been deported five times from the United States at the time of Kate's death. He was homeless, and the only reason he was wandering the streets is because of San Francisco's sanctuary city status, meaning it does not cooperate with immigration detainers.
The verdict by a San Francisco jury outraged many Americans, including President Trump, who called the verdict "disgraceful."
If Garcia-Zarate is convicted on either of the federal charges, he faces a maximum of ten years in prison, the Justice Department said.
SOURCE
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Israel PM Netanyahu's Remarks on US President Trump's Statement on Jerusalem
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For more blog postings from me, see TONGUE-TIED, EDUCATION WATCH INTERNATIONAL, GREENIE WATCH, POLITICAL CORRECTNESS WATCH, AUSTRALIAN POLITICS, and Paralipomena (Occasionally updated), a Coral reef compendium and an IQ compendium. (Both updated as news items come in). GUN WATCH is now mainly put together by Dean Weingarten. I also put up occasional updates on my Personal blog and each day I gather together my most substantial current writings on THE PSYCHOLOGIST.
Email me here (Hotmail address). My Home Pages are here (Academic) or here (Pictorial) or here (Personal)
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7 December, 2017
The poor get sick sooner and die younger in both the USA and the UK
In the later age cohorts, poor people are 3 to 4 times likelier to get ill and die than are wealthy people. And, sadly for the authors below, the wonderful universal health care in the UK made no difference.
Their findings are in fact what always emerges when social class variables -- in this case wealth -- are studied. Poverty is a major influence on death and all sorts of disease. But medical researchers fear political incorrectness if they mention social class as an influence on their findings so ignore it for around 98% of the time in their research reports. So it is worthwhile noting here one of the occasions when they have bitten the bullet.
They have several possible explanations for their findings and all their suggestions probably have some merit. But they overlook the elephant in the room: genetic differences. If genetics is not an influence on your lifespan, what would be?
So what genetic influence could explain the findings? What widely-influential genetically determined human characteristic do we know of? At the risk of sounding like a cracked-record, let me mention our old friend IQ again. I am repetitious about IQ because nature is. No matter what you study, IQ very frequently seems to pop up as an influence. And I just report the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth -- vastly incorrect though that sadly is these days.
Some people are born more functional in general. All their bits work well, including their brain. So they have high IQs. And it is very well established that high IQ people both live longer and are more likely to get rich. The old challenge: "If you are so smart, how come you aren't rich?" is well founded. So the findings below can be explained as showing that long lifespans are largely inborn and that those so born are also likely to be rich because they will also have high IQs. We already knew that from IQ research but it is nice to see the same effects emerging in medical research
Wealth-Associated Disparities in Death and Disability in the United States and England
Lena K. Makaroun et al.
Abstract
Importance: Low income has been associated with poor health outcomes. Owing to retirement, wealth may be a better marker of financial resources among older adults.
Objective: To determine the association of wealth with mortality and disability among older adults in the United States and England.
Design, Setting, and Participants: The US Health and Retirement Study (HRS) and English Longitudinal Study of Aging (ELSA) are nationally representative cohorts of community-dwelling older adults. We examined 12?173 participants enrolled in HRS and 7599 enrolled in ELSA in 2002. Analyses were stratified by age (54-64 years vs 66-76 years) because many safety-net programs commence around age 65 years. Participants were followed until 2012 for mortality and disability.
Exposures: Wealth quintile, based on total net worth in 2002.
Main Outcomes and Measures: Mortality and disability, defined as difficulty performing an activity of daily living.
Results: A total of 6233 US respondents and 4325 English respondents aged 54 to 64 years (younger cohort) and 5940 US respondents and 3274 English respondents aged 66 to 76 years (older cohort) were analyzed for the mortality outcome. Slightly over half of respondents were women (HRS: 6570, 54%; ELSA: 3974, 52%). A higher proportion of respondents from HRS were nonwhite compared with ELSA in both the younger (14% vs 3%) and the older (13% vs 3%) age cohorts. We found increased risk of death and disability as wealth decreased. In the United States, participants aged 54 to 64 years in the lowest wealth quintile (Q1) (?$39?000) had a 17% mortality risk and 48% disability risk over 10 years, whereas in the highest wealth quintile (Q5) (>$560?000) participants had a 5% mortality risk and 15% disability risk (mortality hazard ratio [HR], 3.3; 95% CI, 2.0-5.6; P?<?.001; disability subhazard ratio [sHR], 4.0; 95% CI, 2.9-5.6; P?<?.001). In England, participants aged 54 to 64 years in Q1 (?£34,000) had a 16% mortality risk and 42% disability risk over 10 years, whereas Q5 participants (>£310,550) had a 4% mortality risk and 17% disability risk (mortality HR, 4.4; 95% CI, 2.7-7.0; P?<?.001; disability sHR, 3.0; 95% CI, 2.1-4.2; P?<?.001). In 66- to 76-year-old participants, the absolute risks of mortality and disability were higher, but risk gradients across wealth quintiles were similar. When adjusted for sex, age, race, income, and education, HR for mortality and sHR for disability were attenuated but remained statistically significant.
Conclusions and Relevance: Low wealth was associated with death and disability in both the United States and England. This relationship was apparent from age 54 years and continued into later life. Access to health care may not attenuate wealth-associated disparities in older adults.
SOURCE
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DACA Isn’t What Liberals Claim and Will Only Attract Even More Illegal Immigration
Some members of Congress are threatening to block government funding unless Congress provides amnesty to so-called Dreamers—the illegal aliens included in President Barack Obama’s Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program, which President Donald Trump is ending.
Responsible members of Congress should not give in. Such an effort would be fundamentally flawed and would only encourage even more illegal immigration—just as the 1986 amnesty in the Immigration Reform and Control Act did.
Democrats portray the DACA program as only benefitting those who were a few years old when they came to the U.S. illegally, leaving them unable to speak their native language and ignorant of their countries’ cultural norms. Therefore, the reasoning goes, it would be a hardship to return them to the countries where they were born.
Obama himself gave this rationale when he said DACA beneficiaries were “brought to this country by their parents” as infants and face “deportation to a country that [they] know nothing about, with a language” they don’t even speak.
While this may be true of a small portion of the DACA population, it certainly is not true of all of the aliens who received administrative amnesty. In fact, illegal aliens were eligible as long as they came to the U.S. before their 16th birthday and were under the age of 31 as of June 15, 2012.
DACA also required that beneficiaries enroll in school, graduate from high school, obtain a GED certificate, or receive an honorable discharge from the military; have no conviction for a felony, significant misdemeanor, or three or more other misdemeanors; and not pose a threat to national security or public safety.
However, the Obama administration appeared to routinely waive the education (or its equivalent) requirement as long as the illegal alien was enrolled in some kind of program. Only 49 percent of DACA beneficiaries have a high school education—despite the fact that a majority of them are adults.
How thorough was Homeland Security vetting? In February 2017, after the arrest of a DACA beneficiary for gang membership, the Department of Homeland Security admitted that at least 1,500 DACA beneficiaries had their eligibility terminated “due to a criminal conviction, gang affiliation, or a criminal conviction related to gang affiliation.” By August 2017, that number had surged to 2,139.
In fact, based on documents obtained by Judicial Watch, it is apparent that the Obama administration used a “lean and light” system of background checks in which only a few, randomly selected DACA applicants were ever actually vetted.
Additionally, DACA only excluded individuals for convictions. Thus, even if a Homeland Security background investigation—which apparently was almost never done—produced substantial evidence that an illegal alien might have committed multiple crimes, the alien would still be eligible for DACA unless Homeland Security referred the violation to state or federal prosecutors and the alien was convicted.
DACA had no requirement of English fluency either. In fact, the original application requested applicants to answer whether the form had been “read” to the alien by a translator “in a language in which [the applicant is] fluent.” The Center for Immigration Studies estimates that “perhaps 24 percent of the DACA-eligible population fall into the functionally illiterate category and another 46 percent have only ‘basic’ English ability.”
This is a far cry from the image of DACA beneficiaries as all children who don’t speak the language of—and know nothing about the culture of—their native countries.
In fact, it seems rather that a significant percentage of DACA beneficiaries may have serious limitations in their education, experience, and English fluency that negatively affected their ability to function in American society.
Providing amnesty to low-skilled, low-educated aliens with marginal English language ability would impose large fiscal costs on American taxpayers resulting from increased government payouts and benefits, and would be unfair to legal immigrants who obeyed the law to come here.
Any congressional amnesty bill providing citizenship for DACA beneficiaries could significantly increase the number of illegal aliens who will benefit unless Congress amends the sponsorship rules under federal immigration law. Providing lawful status to millions of so-called “Dreamers” will allow the extended families of those aliens to profit from illegal conduct.
The U.S. accepts about a million legal immigrants every year. According to a recent study, of the 33 million legal immigrants admitted over the last 35 years, about 61 percent were chain migration immigrants.
The average immigrant has sponsored 3.45 additional immigrants, but for DACA beneficiaries, that number is likely to be much higher. This is because, according to an analysis by the Department of Homeland Security, 76 percent of the DACA beneficiaries were from Mexico. Mexican immigrants sponsor an average of 6.38 additional legal immigrants—the highest rate of any nationality for chain migration.
Providing amnesty would simply attract even more illegal immigration and would not solve the myriad of enforcement problems we have along our borders and in the interior of the country. Congress should concentrate on giving the federal government (with the assistance and help of state and local governments) the resources to enforce existing immigration laws to reduce the illegal alien population in the U.S. and stem entry into the country.
Until those goals are accomplished, it is premature to even consider any DACA-type bill.
SOURCE
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Trump to recognise Jerusalem as capital of Israel, sparking Palestinian ‘rage’
Trump shows what it's like to have a President with balls
US PRESIDENT Donald Trump will officially recognise Jerusalem as the capital of Israel, a potentially dangerous change that will spark “three days of rage” in Palestine.
White House officials have confirmed the President’s decision to move the US embassy from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem, ahead of the President’s speech on the subject.
Senior white house staffers said the move was designed to acknowledge the “reality” that Jerusalem was the capital of Israel and fulfil a “major campaign promise”.
The change in policy is controversial because it is likely to be viewed in the region as the US siding with Israel. King Abdullah of Jordan said the decision “would constitute a flagrant provocation to all Muslims, all over the world”.
SOURCE
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For more blog postings from me, see TONGUE-TIED, EDUCATION WATCH INTERNATIONAL, GREENIE WATCH, POLITICAL CORRECTNESS WATCH, AUSTRALIAN POLITICS, and Paralipomena (Occasionally updated), a Coral reef compendium and an IQ compendium. (Both updated as news items come in). GUN WATCH is now mainly put together by Dean Weingarten. I also put up occasional updates on my Personal blog and each day I gather together my most substantial current writings on THE PSYCHOLOGIST.
Email me here (Hotmail address). My Home Pages are here (Academic) or here (Pictorial) or here (Personal)
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6 December, 2017
Triumph of the bureaucrats
MARTIN HUTCHINSON
The typical form of human government moved from absolute monarchy, to oligarchy, to democracy, but it did not stop there. As government grew, popular control over it declined, while its own bureaucracy became the principal factor determining its direction. We have now reached the stage where to term the result a “democracy” is laughably in error. We have entered the era of the Bureaucrat State, and the mechanisms for restoring popular control are very limited indeed.
Two centuries ago, governments had almost no bureaucracy. Under Lord Palmerston in the 1830s, the foreign policy of the world’s greatest power was managed by a total of about 30 clerks, with Palmerston himself reading and signing, and in many cases writing by hand, every dispatch that went out. Such a system required an energetic Minister at the top – under some lazy early 19th Century occupants of Ministerial offices, official business clogged up completely and the department descended into complete stasis.
The problem arose with the rise of the Progressives in the United States and the Keynesians in Britain. Neither Progressives nor Keynesians were remotely democratic in outlook; they believed in rule by experts, which by definition did not include the general public. Even Progressive inventions like the Presidential primary were designed to take politics away from “smoke filled room” politicians who did deals, rather than deciding matters “objectively” as Progressives preferred to do.
In continental Europe, the Progressive urge for control was expressed as socialism or Communism, which were mostly intellectual movements put in place through worker votes, industrial activity, or revolutionary agitation. It is interesting that this tactic, of using workers’ strong-arm tactics to force the adoption of middle class intellectuals’ schemes, dates back to the Reform Bill agitation of 1831-32. The 1832 Reform Act was notable for enfranchising no additional workers at all, because of the high property qualification for voting, while disfranchising numerous workers who had voting rights under the old haphazard system. But the workers fell for it, and rioted when told to do so – poor saps; their only reward was the institution of Workhouses two years later by the 1834 Poor Law.
In the United States, the Progressives were never allowed a long run at power until the failure had become clear even to them of Soviet Communism, the ultimate rule-by-experts, where all resources are allocated by an expert-operated Gosplan. In Britain, a Gosplan approach complete with rationing that lasted until 1954, was tried during the 1940s, but the electorate had the sense to vote it out and return to something a little more sensible.
Rather than direct price controls, the Progressives of today attempt to achieve their ends through a morass of regulations. This tendency first became obvious in the Great Society years, as those in power attempted to build a better society through government programs and regulations. The regulatory zeal then intensified under President Nixon, when the Progressives, out of Presidential power but utterly in control of Congress, took the opportunity to create agency after agency while they could not be blamed for the resulting economic malaise.
Monetary policy is now another area of bureaucrat control. Under the Gold Standard, money was controlled by the markets; if banks overextended themselves or the government ran too large a budget deficit, gold flowed out of the country, forcing the central bank to raise interest rates and draw it back in. Today, the fetish is for central banks that are independent of political control, which means they are run by the bureaucrat class. We have seen the folly of this in the last decade; various cuckoo monetary experiments have been tried, entirely at the whim of the bureaucrats and entirely without the participation of markets or electorates.
Bureaucrats fight back when their power is threatened, and do not allow it to slip out of their hands easily. One recent example of this is the shenanigans at the U.S. Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, which was deliberately set up to protect bureaucrats, and where they have attempted to prevent the current non-bureaucrat administration from taking over. Mess things up badly enough for four years, make sure a bureaucrat-friendly President (either a Democrat or a Bushite, Never-Trump Republican) is elected in 2020 and their tenure will be secure, probably forever.
The Brexit vote last year was a magnificent fight-back against the EU’s Bureaucrat State, but the bureaucrats are now doing their damnedest to negate it. They have allowed the EU to escalate its demands for British money on exit to a ridiculous 100 billion euros, and they are spreading scare stories about how a “no-deal” exit from the EU in March 2019 would be an unmitigated disaster. Bank of England Governor Mark Carney is doing their work for them also, not only by propagandizing but also by holding real interest rates at a ludicrous minus 3%, wrecking British productivity by distorting capital allocation, in the hope that Britain’s budget will be so hopelessly out of kilter by March 2019 that Brexit seems impossible. Make no mistake about it, the EU and British bureaucracies are desperate to negate Britain’s last remaining hope for freedom, and will stop at nothing to do so.
The EU itself is the world’s first fully bureaucrat-controlled government with constitutional quasi-democratic forms. It may thus represent the future to which we are trending, as the free oligarchy of 18th Century Britain and Federalist America is replaced by the near-true democracy of 19th Century America and early 20th Century Britain, to be replaced again by the 21st century norm of the Bureaucrat State.
In the EU Bureaucrat State, everything is regulated, while the rubber-stamp Parliament is organized so that a majority political coalition can never be formed. Thereby government is completely run by pro-bureaucrat forces, and any anti-bureaucrat legislators elected are relegated to the fringes of left or right.
Bureaucrats, ratified by a compliant Parliament and bureaucrat-friendly courts, lay down complex and draconian rules of speech and action, so dissent is suppressed. Economic activity at any but the smallest level is not only regulated but completely subject to arbitrary decrees by the bureaucrat elite – thus ensuring that companies toe the bureaucrat line and spend money on further pro-bureaucrat propaganda, to ensure their survival against a state that can turn vengeful. It is the vision of George Orwell’s “1984” – initially richer, but soon descending into abject poverty as the economy is wrecked by bureaucrat economic policies – Keynesianism, without Keynes’ residual if limited feel for the market.
As for China, that rapidly rising economic power; it has transformed itself from Communism, but only by rotating about 30 degrees to a bureaucrat run state “capitalism.” Unlike the EU, it lacks the democratic fig-leaf of the European Parliament, and it has a few more political prisoners, but the two governments are sisters in spirit. Eastern Europeans who think they may escape the control of Brussels by cosying up to Beijing are in for a very nasty shock.
Finally, there are the international institutions, all of them populated by bureaucrats, entirely beyond any democratic control and all dedicated to the rise of that ultimate nightmare, the global Bureaucrat State, from which there is no escape. They were set up at Bretton Woods in 1944 by the proto-bureaucrat Maynard Keynes and the Communist Harry Dexter White, and they have remained true to the vision of both men. As far as possible, they should be starved of resources; that blessed moment in 2005-06 when the IMF appeared to have nothing to do, and could have been shuttered entirely, was yet another massive opportunity missed by the feeble governments of those years.
Apart from a Brexit Britain if against the odds it can be obtained, the only forces standing up against the Bureaucrat state are Donald Trump and Vladimir Putin. Both have an instinctive hatred of bureaucrats, Putin’s from having grown up in a Communist country and Trump’s from having grown up in a free one. That is why, at global gatherings of the great and the good, they instinctively gravitate towards each other. Putin has not interest in freedom of course; his preference is a tightly-run kleptocracy. But in the struggle against the Bureaucrat State, my enemy’s enemy is my friend. We shall be much worse off when Putin goes, and his successor cosies up to the EU.
Mock this column’s pessimism all you like it. But don’t expect to read another like it in 20 years’ time. The Bureaucrat State, by then in full control, will not allow the publication of such sedition.
SOURCE
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Supreme Court gives the go-ahead for Trump's travel ban to be put in place IMMEDIATELY
Lawless Leftist lower court judges rebuffed
The U.S. Supreme Court on Monday handed a victory to President Donald Trump by allowing his latest travel ban targeting people from six Muslim-majority countries to go into full effect even as legal challenges continue in lower courts.
The ruling is an indication that the Trump administration's third travel ban could be able to stand.
The court, with two of the nine justices dissenting, granted his administration's request to lift two injunctions imposed by lower courts that had partially blocked the ban, which is the third version of a contentious policy that Trump first sought to implement a week after taking office in January.
The justices, with two dissenting votes, said Monday that the policy can take full effect even as legal challenges against it make their way through the courts.
The action suggests the high court could uphold the latest version of the ban that Trump announced in September.
The ban blocks visitors and migrants from Chad, Iran, Libya, Somalia, Syria, Yemen and North Korea.
The administration cited the president's broad authority to control immigration and national security.
Federal court judges in Maryland and Hawaii had blocked portions of a ban in October pending legal challenges.
SOURCE
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Refugee Admissions to U.S. Down 83% So Far in FY18
Refugee admissions to the United States were down 83 percent in the first two months of fiscal 2018 (October and November) compared to the first two months of fiscal 2017.
A total of only 3,108 refugees were admitted in October and November down from the 18,300 refugees who were admitted in October and November of last year.
Meanwhile, fourteen months after the Obama administration backed a push at the U.N. for global responsibility-sharing for refugees and migrants, the Trump Administration has pulled out of the intitiative. U.S. Ambassador to the U.N. Nikki Haley said it “is simply not compatible with U.S. sovereignty.”
The weekend announcement comes amid a sharp drop in the number of refugees admitted to the United States during the first two months of fiscal year 2018.
The most striking change between the refugee admissions in the initial two-month period of this fiscal year and last fiscal year was the relative differences in size of the contingents from Syria, Somalia and Iraq.
In Oct.-Nov. 2016, 2,259 Syrians (97.6 percent Muslim, 1.7 percent Christian), 2,463 Somalis (99.9 percent Muslim) and 2,262 Iraqis (75 percent Muslim, 17.3 percent Christian, 7.4 percent Yazidi) were resettled.
In Oct.-Nov. 2017 the numbers had dropped to 33 Syrians (66.6 percent Muslim, 33.3 percent Christian), 126 Somalis (100 percent Muslim) and 76 Iraqis (84.2 percent Muslim, 10.5 percent Christian, 3.9 percent Yazidi).
Among the 3,108 refugees admitted since FY 2018 began, the five largest contingents came from Bhutan (805), the Democratic Republic of Congo (627), Burma (347), Ukraine (290) and Eritrea (281).
The religious breakdown of those 3,108 refugees was: 59.6 percent Christian, 15.4 percent Muslim, 9.6 percent Buddhist, 7.6 percent Hindu, 4.7 percent Kirat and 0.9 percent Jewish.
By contrast, the five countries represented most strongly among the 18,300 refugees resettled by the Obama administration in the U.S. during the first two months of FY 2017 were the DRC (4,236), Somalia (2,463), Iraq (2,262), Syria (2,259) and Burma (1,509).
Now the administration is also withdrawing from a U.N. initiative called the Global Compact on Migration.
In a statement Sunday, Secretary of State Rex Tillerson said the U.S. would continue to engage at the U.N. but in this case it “simply cannot in good faith support a process that could undermine the sovereign right of the United States to enforce our immigration laws and secure our borders.”
SOURCE
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For more blog postings from me, see TONGUE-TIED, EDUCATION WATCH INTERNATIONAL, GREENIE WATCH, POLITICAL CORRECTNESS WATCH, AUSTRALIAN POLITICS, and Paralipomena (Occasionally updated), a Coral reef compendium and an IQ compendium. (Both updated as news items come in). GUN WATCH is now mainly put together by Dean Weingarten. I also put up occasional updates on my Personal blog and each day I gather together my most substantial current writings on THE PSYCHOLOGIST.
Email me here (Hotmail address). My Home Pages are here (Academic) or here (Pictorial) or here (Personal)
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5 December, 2017
Disgraced Spook Michael Hayden Only Cares About One Tenth Of The Bill Of Rights
He spied on Americans when he was supposed to be spying on foreigners
Time and again, President Donald Trump has triggered people across America with his habitual tweeting. Twitter has continued to offer a direct gateway to the thought process of a President, something Americans have never known before. His tweets are not watered down by his staff, they’re directly from him. Where President Trump encounters trouble is when he fires shots against his political enemies.
The hyperbole in response is incredible. Critics label his tweeting habits as dangerous to liberty and the free press. Using his own right to free speech to criticize those who criticize him is apparently contrary to the First Amendment.
Count disgraced spook Michael Hayden as one of those people jumping on the hyperbole bandwagon.
Over the weekend, President Trump incited a whole new uproar by stating Fox News is more important to America than CNN. He then went on to tweet that CNN represents the United States poorly worldwide. Fox News has long held a Republican bias, whereas CNN is frequently criticized for leaning too far to the left. CNN and the President have exchanged insults and criticism for several years now.
Is this an attack on the First Amendment right to free press? Former Central Intelligence Agency Director Michael Hayden believes so. In a tweet, Hayden slammed the President for his “outrageous assault” on the truth, free press and the First Amendment.
The problem here is that Hayden, who also once ran the National Security Agency, is no constitutional scholar. This is evidenced by the intelligence community routinely violating the founding documents under his watch. But here he is attacking other people for apparently violating the Constitution, as if he cares about it one bit.
The problem with the oft-stated claim that the President is attacking the free press is that it’s just wrong. When he criticizes CNN, he isn’t declaring that we should close down the press or shut down free speech. He’s calling a specific entity into question and using his own right to free speech.
Isn’t the right to speak freely and disagree one of the many great things about America?
Hayden also claims that if this is what the country is turning into, then his forty year career is a lie. Given that he directed two intelligence agencies to routinely violate the Bill of Rights against American citizens, it’s difficult to say that his career consisted of serving the cause of good.
In the last year, the President has given America some legitimate issues to complain about. He, like anyone else, is not perfect and, being a human being, will certainly make mistakes. But is free speech something people should be complaining about? This is the ultimate irony here.
Michael Hayden isn’t a constitutional scholar. In fact, he’s shown clear disdain for the Constitution. But he clearly doesn’t have a clue, as evidenced by his most recent bandwagon tweet joining the left-wing echo chamber.
SOURCE
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Disloyal State Dept. officials being given marching orders
Secretary of State Rex Tillerson is finally taking control of his State Department. Besieged with leaks as Obama-era holdovers have been retained, 100 senior Foreign Service Officers have already been forced out, with more anticipated to come. Disposed bureaucrats have taken their sob stories to the mainstream media about how Tillerson’s swamp draining has wronged them.
The New York Times released an article last week regarding the plight of career bureaucrats who are on their way out of the Trump administration. The bureaucrats do have their supporters – long-time Washington D.C. lawmakers who desperately want to maintain the status quo.
“The amount of talent leaving the State Department endangers the institution and undermines American leadership, security and interests around the world,” the U.S. House Committee on Foreign Affairs said in a letter addressed to Sec. Tillerson.
“Even more troubling, the Department is reportedly planning to offer buyouts to reduce State’s numbers even further, seemingly for no other goal than to decrease the size of the Department’s personnel,” the committee said. “With the range of crises, war, and humanitarian disaster around the world, slashing our diplomatic corps is downright dangerous.”
U.S. Senators John McCain (R-AZ) and Jeanne Shaheen (D-NH) released a bipartisan letter addressed to Sec. Tillerson deriding the decision to purge the State Department as well.
“The State Department’s non-partisan Foreign Service and Civil Service career professionals represent a unique national asset that belongs to all Americans. They are America’s front line, promoting our safety, security and prosperity, often in difficult and dangerous places. While we support reasonable steps to improve the efficiency of the State Department, such efforts must be fully transparent, with the objective of enhancing, not diminishing, American diplomacy,” the Senators said.
The bureaucrats are sounding the alarm about the changes as well, as many of them complained to the Times themselves.
“The United States is at the center of every crisis around the world, and you simply cannot be effective if you don’t have assistant secretaries and ambassadors in place,” R. Nicholas Burns, former under secretary of state for President George W. Bush, said. “It shows a disdain for diplomacy.”
“These people either do not believe the U.S. should be a world leader, or they’re utterly incompetent,” former Qatar ambassador Dana Shell Smith told the Times. “Either way, having so many vacancies in essential places is a disaster waiting to happen.”
While the bureaucrats and their enablers believe that the sky is going to fall without a massive concentration of unaccountable officials in the State Department, Tillerson has remembered his administration’s mandate: Drain the Swamp. The only recourse of the swamp rats will be to cry to a dwindling audience.
SOURCE
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The Irrational, Unshakable Faith of the Collusion Conspiracists
It is amazing the degree to which seemingly intelligent people hold an unshakable belief the Trump campaign colluded with Russia to win the election. Blind to the trumped up narrative unraveling all around them, oblivious to the absence of any evidence or even a substantive allegation of a deal between Trump and Russians, unmoved by every error and scandal the media stumbles into trying to push the story, they simply know it’s true. They smugly sneer and disdain anyone who points out the holes in collusion conspiracy.
Last week’s guilty plea by Trump’s short lived national security advisor Michael Flynn is a prime exhibit of the critics’ unshakable faith in The Narrative. Michael Flynn pled guilty to a single count of lying to the FBI. Instantly the Trump impeachment mob was high fiving and laying bets how soon the trail would lead to Trump and force his exit.
ABC’s Brian Ross added to the frenzy when he breathlessly blurted that Flynn was cooperating with Muller, and would testify that, during the campaign, Candidate Trump had directed him to contact the Russians. The mob went wild. Smoking gun! Collusion! Treason!
By the next day, Ross and ABC had to backpedal in disgrace: The direction to Flynn came after the election, not before. That is, it was about transitional diplomacy on behalf of an incoming administration, not about hacking emails or rigging the vote for a candidate in an upcoming election. The supposed bombshell turns out to be little more than a distracting sparkler. ABC suspended Ross without pay for four weeks.
The information released by Muller the next day was clear: Flynn was directed to engage the Russians about improved relations, about considering opposing a UN resolution against Israel, and about cooperating to fight ISIS in the Middle East. There was simply nothing untoward about those contacts. Why Flynn would have lied to FBI investigators about having them is something of a mystery. But he pled to lying about things that were right and proper, not wrong and collusive. They were completely unrelated to the campaign and voting.
In a sane world, the details of the Flynn plea would have been seen as strong indication there is nothing to the collusion conspiracy. We don’t live in that world.
SOURCE
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Psychotherapist: "No, Trump is not Crazy..."
Psychotherapist Andrew Snyder emailed to share an op-ed he wrote for Fox News that discusses the political bias of those in the mental health field toward President Trump:
"Some psychologists, psychiatrists and other mental health professionals have effectively joined “the resistance” to President Trump, publicly stating that he is seriously mentally ill. I’m a psychotherapist and I disagree.
One of the books these anti-Trumpers have churned out, which made it to the New York Times Bestseller List, is “The Dangerous Case of Donald Trump: 27 Psychiatrists and Mental Health Experts Assess a President.” The authors “offer their consensus view that Trump’s mental state presents a clear and present danger to our nation and individual well-being,” according to the Amazon page promoting the book.
This is not a professional diagnosis. It is a political statement, being used by Trump’s opponents in the mental health field to attack him because they oppose what he is trying to accomplish in Washington.
And predictably, politicians, media commentators and celebrities have used the “Trump is crazy” claim to call for his impeachment, arguing that he is unfit for office. This is absurd."
As Mr. Snyder so aptly states, "It’s official. The shrinks have taken a dive into the swamp." Too bad we can't drain the swamp of mental health "experts" who purposely conflate political bias with concern about the president's fitness.
Psychologists are one of the most biased professions, with the majority of them being liberal. Because of their political bias, many mental health types are untrustworthy and a clear and present danger to half the population in this country and maybe more, they should focus on this failure instead of falsely accusing their political enemies of being crazy.
SOURCE
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For more blog postings from me, see TONGUE-TIED, EDUCATION WATCH INTERNATIONAL, GREENIE WATCH, POLITICAL CORRECTNESS WATCH, AUSTRALIAN POLITICS, and Paralipomena (Occasionally updated), a Coral reef compendium and an IQ compendium. (Both updated as news items come in). GUN WATCH is now mainly put together by Dean Weingarten. I also put up occasional updates on my Personal blog and each day I gather together my most substantial current writings on THE PSYCHOLOGIST.
Email me here (Hotmail address). My Home Pages are here (Academic) or here (Pictorial) or here (Personal)
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4 December, 2017
Democrats Thrive by Keeping Americans Divided, Dependent, and Angry
Dennis Prager
In almost every area of American life, the better things are, the worse it is for the Democratic Party. And vice versa.
Marriage
Even today, after decades of feminism, most Americans agree that it is better for women (and for men)—and better for society—when women (and men) marry.
Yet, when women marry, it is bad for the Democratic Party; and when women do not marry, even after—or shall we say, especially after—having children, it is quite wonderful for the Democratic Party.
Married women vote Republican. Unmarried women lopsidedly vote Democrat.
It is both silly and dishonest to deny that it is in the Democrats’ interest that women not marry.
Blacks
Blacks who are not angry at America, especially white America, are more likely than those who harbor such anger to vote Republican. On the other hand, the more a black American considers America a racist society, the more he or she is a guaranteed Democratic voter.
Therefore, it is in the Democratic Party’s interest to ensure that as many blacks as possible regard America negatively. If Democrats feel it will benefit their party, they will play with fire—the fire of violence.
Take Ferguson, Missouri. No Democrat or Republican knows what happened in Ferguson just before a black teenager was shot by a white policeman. The only thing almost any American has known about Ferguson is that a white police officer shot and killed a black teenager.
Yet, while blacks in Ferguson demonstrated, some violently, the reaction of Democrats—both politicians and the mainstream left-wing media—has been to side with the demonstrators.
There does not appear to be any level of black anger at white America that is too much for Democrats, who would rather see riots—no matter how unwarranted—than potentially lose black votes.
Latinos
The more a Latino assimilates into American society, the more likely he or she is to vote Republican. On the other hand, the more Latinos continue to identify with the country they or their parents fled, the more likely they are to vote Democrat.
Thus, Democrats and the rest of the left have engaged in two massive undertakings for decades: One has been to label Republicans “nativist,” “anti-Hispanic,” “xenophobic,” and “anti-immigrant.” The other has been to promote “multiculturalism,” the anti-assimilation doctrine that cultivates ethnic identity over American identity.
Democrats repeatedly assert that America is “a nation of immigrants.” This is undeniable. But there is a big difference today.
In the past, nearly all immigrants sought to become American and to shed their previous national or ethnic identity. Today, many, perhaps a majority of, immigrants from Latin America do not have that goal. They come primarily or exclusively for economic benefits (and no one should blame them for doing so).
Meanwhile, under cover of “multiculturalism,” Democrats and the rest of the left cultivate these immigrants’ Latin American identities, knowing that the more American an immigrant feels, the less likely he or she is to vote Democrat.
Victim Identity
Americans who do not see themselves as victims—of an “unfair” or “racist” or “misogynist” society—are more likely to vote Republican. On the other hand, Americans who see themselves as victims of American society are likely to vote Democrat.
Therefore, the Democratic Party and its supportive media cultivate victimhood among almost all Americans who are not white and male.
Dependency
The more Americans depend on themselves or on their family or community, the more likely they are to vote Republican. On the other hand, the more Americans depend on the government—whether for a job or for economic assistance—the more likely they are to vote Democrat.
Therefore, it is in the Democrats’ interest to have more and more Americans depend on the state.
In other words, in almost every area of life, the better things are, the worse it is for the Democratic Party. Democrats have placed themselves in the role of benefiting from social and moral dysfunction.
And they have embraced this role. The Democratic Party cultivates singlehood, black anger at America, Latino separatism, victimhood, group grievance, and dependency on government.
Nor is this the only way in which Democrats do terrible damage to America. They are also tearing America apart, setting women against men (with such falsehoods as “the war on women,” “the rape culture” at American colleges, and the nonsense that “women are paid less for the same work”), blacks against whites, and Latinos against other Americans.
They do this because the less women see men as an enemy, the less blacks regard whites as an enemy, and the more Latinos see themselves as Americans, the worse it is for Democrats.
The Democratic Party has become a wholly destructive force in this country. Even though you may not intend to, if you vote for any Democrat, you contribute to that damage.
SOURCE
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US threatens to close Palestinian office in Washington
The Trump administration put the Palestine Liberation Organization on notice Friday that it will close the group's office in Washington if the Palestinians don't get serious about peace talks with Israel, State Department officials said.
Secretary of State Rex Tillerson has determined the Palestinians have violated a rarely invoked provision in US law that calls for the closure of the Palestine Liberation Organization's mission if they act against Israel in the International Criminal Court, the officials said.
The department asserts that Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas ran afoul of the law in September when he called on the ICC to investigate and prosecute Israel for war crimes against the Palestinians.
"The secretary concluded that the factual record, certain statements made by Palestinian leaders about the ICC, did not permit (Tillerson) to make the factual certification required by the statute" to keep the PLO mission open, a State Department official said.
In a speech to the UN General Assembly, Abbas said the Palestinians have asked the the ICC "to open an investigation and to prosecute Israeli officials for their involvement in settlement activities and aggressions against our people."
Saeb Erekat, a top PLO official and lead Palestinian negotiator, said the Palestinians have responded to Tillerson's determination by warning they will end all contact with the Trump administration if it closes the US office.
"This is the pressure being exerted on this administration from the Netanyahu government; at a time when we are trying to cooperate to achieve the ultimate deal, they take such steps which will undermine the whole peace process," Erekat said in a statement to CNN.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's office issued a short statement calling the US decision "a matter of US law."
"We respect the decision and look forward to continuing to work with the US to advance peace and security in the region," it said.
The Associated Press first reported the news of Tillerson's decision and the notification to the Palestinians.
The threat to the Palestinians of losing their office in Washington could be a point of leverage for President Donald Trump as he seeks to coax the Palestinians to the table. The Israelis and Palestinians are not engaged direct negotiations, but Jared Kushner, President Donald Trump's son-in-law and a top White House adviser, and Jason Greenblatt, a senior aide charged with negotiations on Middle East peace, have been working to broker a peace deal to end the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.
This month, the White House said officials are preparing a peace proposal which they intend to put forward at a unspecified time. They have provided no details about the proposal, but Kushner and Greenblatt have been shuttling to the Middle East region to meet with Palestinians, Israelis and Arab nations in hopes of securing a deal.
Although the United States does not recognize statehood for the Palestinians, President Bill Clinton waived a 1980s-era law that barred them from having an office and allowed the PLO, which formally represents all Palestinians, to open a mission in Washington in 1994. President Obama allowed the Palestinians to fly the flag over their office, upgrading the status of their mission, in 2011.
Congress added a provision to the law in 2015 requiring the shuttering of the mission if the Palestinians seek to "influence a determination by the ICC to initiate a judicially authorized investigation, or to actively support such an investigation, that subjects Israeli nationals to an investigation for alleged crimes against Palestinians."
Before the change to the law, the president could keep the PLO mission open merely by certifying that waiving the ban on Palestinian representation in the United States was in the US national interest. The most recent certification period ended in November.
Trump, meanwhile, could also waive Tillerson's determination; the President now has 90 days to consider whether the Palestinians are engaged in "direct and meaningful negotiations with Israel" before making such a decision.
However, the law does not specifically define what constitutes direct or meaningful negations.
Even if Trump decides to close the office, a State Department official said the United States would not completely cut off relations with the Palestinians and is focused on bringing about a comprehensive peace deal.
"We remain focused on a comprehensive peace agreement between the Israelis and the Palestinians that will resolve core issues between the parties," the official said in an email. "This measure should in no way be a signal that the US is backing off those efforts. Nor should it be exploited by those who seek to act as spoilers to distract from the imperative of reaching a peace agreement."
SOURCE
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For more blog postings from me, see TONGUE-TIED, EDUCATION WATCH INTERNATIONAL, GREENIE WATCH, POLITICAL CORRECTNESS WATCH, AUSTRALIAN POLITICS, and Paralipomena (Occasionally updated), a Coral reef compendium and an IQ compendium. (Both updated as news items come in). GUN WATCH is now mainly put together by Dean Weingarten. I also put up occasional updates on my Personal blog and each day I gather together my most substantial current writings on THE PSYCHOLOGIST.
Email me here (Hotmail address). My Home Pages are here (Academic) or here (Pictorial) or here (Personal)
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3 December, 2017
Elizabeth Warren Plagiarized 'Cherokee' Crabmeat Recipe from French Chef
This might seem a trivial matter but it is more evidence that Pocahontas is psychopathic. What regularly gets psychopaths unglued is that they never foresee that their lies will be found out. Claiming to be Cherokee when she wasn't was a big example of that but her recipe claim is another.
It is also psychopathic that psychopaths gild the lily. So not only did she submit the recipe as hers but she boldly said it "had been passed down for generations in her Cherokee family".
Her attraction to the Left is that she does rage well but again that is the only real emotion that psychopaths have. All the rest is fake. She will wriggle out of this one with more lies. And the Left will believe her because they want to.
Boston radio host Howie Carr said his state's senior senator lifted a French chef's recipe and submitted it as an authentic Cherokee recipe for a Native American-themed cookbook.
Earlier this week, President Donald Trump again dubbed Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) "Pocahontas" - a riff on her claim to be of Cherokee ancestry.
Tucker Carlson asked Carr about the 1984 book, Pow Wow Chow, to which Warren submitted two recipes featuring shellfish. "When she isn't stealing a Cherokee identity, Warren is also stealing recipes," Tucker Carlson said.
Carr said Warren claimed that the recipes had been passed down for generations in her Cherokee family.
But, he said that the recipes actually came from a former ritzy New York City restaurant owned by late French chef Pierre Franey. Franey said the dishes were a favorite of the late King Edward VIII, Duke of Windsor, as well as American composer Cole Porter.
SOURCE
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Trump Isn’t Destroying the 1st Amendment – ‘The Press Is Destroying Itself’
Nationally syndicated radio talk show host Mark Levin ripped the United States press Wednesday, suggesting on his show that President Trump is not destroying the 1st Amendment but that “[t]he press is destroying itself.”
“We’ve heard now since Donald Trump decided to run for president and up to modern day that he is destroying the 1st Amendment and freedom of the press,” stated Mark Levin. “The press is destroying itself.”
Levin’s comments came as yet another journalist, Matt Lauer, has been accused of “inappropriate sexual behavior in the workplace,” leading to the NBC “Today” show co-anchor’s firing.
Below is transcript of Levin’s remarks from his show Wednesday:
“That Access Hollywood tape which came out, that video – and what Billy Bush had said and what Trump had said and so forth – it almost looks quaint compared to what we’re learning with respect to these journalists. Not just bravado, not just opinions and so forth, not just nasty stuff, we’re talking about acting out nasty stuff – acting it out.
“Now, we’ve talked about this a long time: when a country loses its virtue, the country is lost. I don’t believe our country has lost its virtue. I believe our government has. I believe politicians as a class have, journalists as a class have, cultural entities – like Hollywood – as a class has. I believe they have. I really do.
“We’ve heard now since Donald Trump decided to run for president and up to modern day that he is destroying the 1st Amendment and freedom of the press. The press is destroying itself.
“The American people, when they talk about the press, despise the press. When the American people think about the press, they ridicule the press. They don’t believe the press.
“And when you have people like Matt Lauer and Charlie Rose – and there’s more, I can’t think of them all, and there will be more – conducting themselves as they do, you can’t trust them to report a straight story. You can’t trust them to report a straight story.
“No wonder poor Juanita Broaddrick, when she came forward, or poor Paula Jones or Kathleen Willy and a host of others, no wonder they weren’t believed.
“More to the point, even if they were believed, the media – many aspects, many parts of the media – were conducting themselves the same way. They were not about to go after Bill Clinton.”
SOURCE
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Trump WH Separates Itself from Obama, Highlights Nativity Scene
There've been a lot of wise men in the White House. But this Christmas, there are three more in the East Room, where the Trumps are highlighting a larger-than-life nativity scene. That's just one of the ways the First Family is separating itself from the Obamas, who came dangerously close to ditching the 50-year-old display in 2009. There wasn't room for Jesus at the inn – and for eight years, there wasn't much room for him at 1600 Pennsylvania either.
The Obamas famously wanted a "non-religious Christmas" (which makes about as much sense as a vegetarian barbeque). But they were outed by their social secretary, Desiree Rogers in an eye-opening profile piece for the New York Times. "The lunch conversation inevitably turned to whether the White House would display its crèche, customarily placed in a prominent spot in the East Room. Ms. Rogers, this participant said, replied that the Obamas did not intend to put the manger scene on display – a remark that drew an audible gasp from the tight-knit social secretary sisterhood. (A White House official confirmed that there had been internal discussions about making Christmas more inclusive and whether to display the crèche.)
Ultimately, the Obamas caved to pressure and included the nativity in its décor. For two terms, that was the extent of Christmas in the White House. There were no mentions of Christmas on official cards – and only a smattering of references in eight years of greetings and special events. After eight years of making political correctness a state religion, it's really no wonder Americans flocked to a man who isn't afraid to call the season what it is.
"You go to stores, you don't see the word Christmas," Donald Trump argued on the campaign trail. "It says 'happy holidays' all over. I say, 'Where's Christmas? I tell my wife, 'Don't go to those stores' ... I want to see Christmas." Thanks to the president and First Lady, Americans are seeing Christmas. The White House is alive with tradition, from the "Merry Christmas" on the White House card to its official hashtag #WHChristmas. To the Trumps, it's just another way of keeping their promise.
"Something I said so much during the last two years, but I'll say it again, as we approach the end of the year, you know we're getting near that beautiful Christmas season that people don't talk about anymore," the president said at last month's Values Voter Summit. "They don't use the word Christmas because it's not politically correct. You go to department stores, and they'll say 'Happy New Year,' and they'll say other things. It'll be red. They'll have it painted. Well, guess what? We're saying Merry Christmas again."
The crowd erupted in cheers – completely baffling the media. Like most liberals, they couldn't understand why the issue resonated so much with conservatives. Other reporters almost mocked the line, latching on to it as another silly soundbite on an issue they consider so trivial. But to every Christian in that room, the president was talking about a lot more than the war on Christmas. He was speaking directly into the fight for religious liberty in America.
Maybe the mainstream media didn't notice how stifled Christians were under Barack Obama's government – how everything they said or wore or posted was scrutinized (or worse, punished). After two terms of the most hostile administration to faith the country has ever seen, I guarantee no one takes the simplest expression – "Merry Christmas" – for granted. To the people who elected Donald Trump, this isn't just about putting Christ in a day. It's about putting faith back in American life.
SOURCE
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Communism Made Him a Conservative
If you consider yourself a conservative, have you ever thought about why? How would you answer someone who asked you to explain the reason?
Maybe you’ve never thought about it before. It might be because your parents were conservative, and you absorbed your political outlook from them. Or perhaps you read and thought your way into the movement, the way Ronald Reagan did years before he became president.
Or perhaps there was a moment that shook you and made you look at the world differently.
That’s what happened to Lee Edwards. The author of more than two dozen books, Lee is a good friend of mine, hailed by many as the unofficial historian of the conservative movement.
At a recent event marking the release of his latest book, “Just Right,” I asked him why he’s a conservative. Was it because of his father, himself a famous writer?
“No,” Lee promptly replied. “I’m a conservative because of communism.”
It may be hard for many young people today, years after the Cold War has faded from memory and headlines, to understand what it was like to watch communism advancing after World War II.
Years of bloody combat had been spent defeating Hitler’s Germany and Imperial Japan—and yet freedom was once again under attack.
Lee pointed to a catalyst moment. It was October 1956. He was in Paris and fresh out of the Army:
“All of a sudden, we began hearing these bulletins from Budapest, and it was the Hungarian Revolution. And here were young men and women of my age standing up to the Soviets. Standing up to Soviet tanks and Soviet guns.
“And I was so excited about this—caught up in the courage and the bravery and the desire for freedom of these young Hungarians. And then, two weeks later, the Soviet tanks came back—firing, shooting, killing maybe 20,000 young Hungarians, and then a couple hundred thousand more Hungarians fleeing into exile, because the Soviets were not going to let go of that country.
“And I waited for my country to do something. I waited for more than just a press release. More than just a U.N. resolution.”
But his wait was in vain. “And I was embarrassed. I was ashamed. I was angry. And I resolved at that point that I would do whatever I could for the rest of my life to oppose communism and to help those who were resisting it as well.”
The results of that lifelong fight for freedom are beautifully chronicled in Lee’s new memoir. For years, he’s been using his consummate writing skills to profile leading figures in the conservative movement.
If you want to understand Barry Goldwater, Reagan, and William F. Buckley from an “insider” perspective, check out his remarkable biographies of these men—and see why The New York Times dubbed Lee “the Voice of the Silent Majority.”
But Lee has done more than write. At a time of great national unrest, he organized the largest public demonstration in support of our troops in Vietnam.
He also created the Victims of Communism Memorial in Washington, D.C., which was dedicated by President George W. Bush on June 12, 2007, the 20th anniversary of Reagan’s “Tear Down This Wall” speech.
It wasn’t easy. The federal bureaucracy grinds slowly even on a good day, and more than a decade had passed since Congress had authorized the memorial. But Lee, no doubt remembering the victims of the Hungarian Revolution, saw it through with his usual patient professionalism.
Now, at a time when the question of what it means to be conservative is in even greater flux, Lee’s optimistic and trenchant analysis is more important than ever. He’s spent “a life in pursuit of liberty,” he writes.
Armed with his keen insights, let’s hope the same can be said of the rest of us.
SOURCE
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For more blog postings from me, see TONGUE-TIED, EDUCATION WATCH INTERNATIONAL, GREENIE WATCH, POLITICAL CORRECTNESS WATCH, AUSTRALIAN POLITICS, and Paralipomena (Occasionally updated), a Coral reef compendium and an IQ compendium. (Both updated as news items come in). GUN WATCH is now mainly put together by Dean Weingarten. I also put up occasional updates on my Personal blog and each day I gather together my most substantial current writings on THE PSYCHOLOGIST.
Email me here (Hotmail address). My Home Pages are here (Academic) or here (Pictorial) or here (Personal)
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1 December, 2017
Many non-poor people cannot now access health cover
They can't cover deductibles so most of the time effectively have no insurance
Many lower and moderate income Americans can’t cover their cost sharing if they get sick. It raises the question: How much cost sharing is too much?
High deductible plans, which require people to pay large amounts out of pocket before their medical bills are covered, are a good deal for some middle and upper income people. But many lower and moderate income Americans simply don’t have $1,500 to $3,000 to pay for the colonoscopy that might save their life, or a stress test that might reveal the heart disease which is the cause of their chest discomfort.
More than four in in 10 households with private coverage and incomes between 150% and 400% of the federal poverty line do not have enough liquid assets to cover a deductible of $1,500 for single people and $3,000 for families.
That’s not a high deductible plan, but about the average in an employer-provided insurance plan.
Sixty percent couldn’t cover deductibles double those amounts, which are not uncommon, especially in the individual insurance market.
Ninety percent of insured households with incomes of 400% of poverty or more could meet a typical employer insurance deductible, but just 37% of lower income household with incomes under 150% of the poverty level could.
For many families, even if they have insurance, any significant illness could wipe out all their savings, making impossible to fix a broken car to get to work, or pay for school, or make a rent or mortgage payment.
Congress has passed no law declaring that the country will go with high deductible coverage as its main approach to health insurance. There has been no meaningful debate about its pros and cons. But as deductibles and other forms of cost sharing have inched up year by year, the nature of insurance has changed.
The people to worry about most are the ones who are least equipped to deal with that change.
SOURCE
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Terminally Ill Patients Deserve “Right to Try”
After 21-year old Abigail Burroughs succumbed to cancer in 2001, her family created an organization to help give terminally ill patients access to what Abigail was denied: potentially life-saving drugs not approved for such purposes by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration. Fortunately, after much criticism the FDA now routinely grants access to patients requesting such drugs, and most state governments have enacted so-called right-to-try laws. These are steps in the right direction, but more could be done.
Terminally ill patients and their families would have even more hope if Congress passes SB 204, a national right-to-try bill that gives patients access to experimental drugs without having to get FDA permission, explains Independent Institute Research Fellow Raymond March, in an op-ed for The Hill. Passing such a law, he notes, would require its supporters to overcome political opposition.
Remarkably, opponents of right-to-try laws cite safety concerns for their favoring that the FDA continue to have veto power over the decisions of terminally ill patients and their physicians. Opponents also worry that experimental drug treatments create false hope. “What is truly ‘false hope’ for the terminally ill,” March writes, “is to leave life-and-death decisions to politicians and federal regulators. Allowing them unwarranted and unneeded influence only works to deny these patients from a chance to prolong their life. The alternative, although less ‘risky’, is certainly worse.”
SOURCE
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Get Government Out and Let Markets Work in Health Care
Tom Coburn
Ask the average American what he thinks about health care costs, and he’ll tell you a few things. He’ll tell you it is too expensive and too complicated, that he pays too much for too little, and how outrageous it is that Americans pay more for health care than any country in the world. In all cases, he’ll be spot on. He knows there’s a problem, and he doubts it can be solved — but it can.
Here’s what we know: America is predicted to spend $3.5 trillion on health care in 2017, but about a third of that spending will have no health impact whatsoever; we know that health care inflation accelerated when the government became the primary purchaser of health care for more than half the country; and we know that around $100 billion of government health spending is the result of fraudulent billing and improper payments.
We need policies that encourage competition and transparency, allowing markets to function freely and lower costs across the board.
Put simply: the American health care system is broken. Decades of government mismanagement and over-regulation have encouraged waste, fraud, and inefficiency, which may benefit the healthcare industrial complex, but harms patients and tax payers in the long run. To fix this, we need policies that encourage competition and transparency, allowing markets to function freely and lower costs across the board.
Fortunately, this idea has begun to gather widespread support. A recent study from the Brookings Institution argues that the way to really lower health care costs is to address anticompetitive regulations and practices, like Certificate of Need requirements, health systems acquiring physician-owned practices, and hospital mergers.
The study also argues for federal and state authorities to more actively enforce antitrust laws in the health care industry, which is one of the most important steps that can be taken towards real health care reform. Without real competition, hospital systems, like all monopolies, are free to charge high prices for a subpar product — which is, in this case, your medical care.
These reforms are all necessary, and would have a real impact, but there is still one thing that has not been offered to remedy the barriers to accessing fairly priced, high quality care: price discovery.
Most proposals for health care reform are based around the assumption that people either can’t or won’t take initiative in finding the best health care to meet their needs, and so someone – either an employer or the federal government – has to make those choices for them. This couldn’t be more untrue. The Amish community is a perfect example of how to shop for health care and save a few dollars in the process. I dealt with plenty of Amish patients in my 25 years as a practicing physician, and I was always impressed by their determination — and success — in shopping for value. I get the sense that they buy health care in the open market cheaper than the most sophisticated employer-based plans would provide.
The Amish are, of course, a special case, driven to this kind of frugality by their religious convictions. But they don’t have to be. A wave of new websites and apps – like HealthEngine, Medefy, and MedEncentive – are saving patients and employers hundreds of thousands of dollars a month by making it easy to search for the best values among providers and other medical services. As employers continue to make use of these tools, providers will be forced to compete for patients’ business, not just by lowering prices, but by increasing the time they spend with patients or offering additional services, like telemedicine.
The way I see it, in other markets, the sellers chase us — telling us their prices, their quality, and how much better they are than their competitors. Other businesses, like Trip Advisor, Car Fax, and Schwab help us to sort through our options. It shouldn’t be any different in health care.
Today, inefficient hospital chains, big insurance companies, and a bloated federal bureaucracy like the status quo, not because it’s the best option for American patients, but because it’s the best way for them to maintain their profit margins and power. By rolling back anticompetitive regulations and broadening the use of price transparency tools, we can level an unfair playing field, and make it possible for individuals to regain control of their health care.
The benefits of competition have already been demonstrated by the direct primary care model, where medical practices don’t take insurance. Instead pay a monthly fee – usually around $100 – in exchange for unlimited primary care services. Without insurance to reimburse them, doctors have to compete for patient business, offering a variety of perks, most especially longer visits.
Longer physician visits have a broader benefit, since doctors who spend more time with patients order fewer expensive (and unnecessary) tests, and have lower treatment costs in general.
When it comes to lowering health care costs, we’ve tried everything but price transparency.
How can we introduce this level of competition into the rest of the health care space? The simplest change would be for the federal government to unleash all of Medicare and Medicaid’s information on hospital and physician charges by zip code, and let private entrepreneurs mine the data to find the most efficient providers. Congress could take this a step further by passing a law that mandates all hospital and physician prices must be published and made available to the public in a clear and concise format. As soon as people can readily access this information, they will begin voting with their feet.
When it comes to lowering health care costs, we’ve tried everything but price transparency. Our best option is to empower individuals to choose what’s best for them in a free and open market.
It works for 80 percent of our economy — who says it can’t work here?
SOURCE
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Seattle Saved From Punitive Income Tax
King County Superior Court Judge John Ruhl ruled that Seattle's recent income tax is illegal.
In a little-noticed court decision Monday, King County Superior Court Judge John Ruhl ruled that Seattle’s recent income tax is illegal. We argued it was back in July, so we’re glad Ruhl came to the right conclusion.
“Today’s ruling is a victory for all taxpayers in Seattle and throughout the state, and for everyone who values the rule of law,” said Brian Hodges, an attorney with Pacific Legal Foundation, on behalf of the Seattle residents challenging the tax. “The court performed a service for all taxpayers, and all property owners, by defeating the city’s strategy to undermine their rights.”
As we noted in July, Seattle has hiked its minimum wage, hurting low-income workers by reducing jobs and hours. The city likewise wanted to specifically target wealthier people with a 2.25% tax only on people earning more than $240,000, or $500,000 for couples, annually. Of course, the legal challenge was inevitable. Washington state is one of seven states without an income tax, and state law prohibits cities from levying one — especially one that’s “uneven.” Seattle’s tax was in essence a bill of attainder (outlawed in Article I, Section 9) specifically targeting one group of citizens for the “crime” of earning more money than other people.
The city resorted to some creative rationale to defend the tax. That included arguing it wasn’t an income tax but an “excise tax,” despite the first sentence of the city ordinance calling it … an income tax. But Ruhl wasn’t fooled. “The City’s tax, which is labeled ‘Income Tax,’ is exactly that,” he wrote. “It cannot be restyled as an ‘excise tax’ on the alternate ‘privileges’ of receiving revenue in Seattle or choosing to live in Seattle.”
We’ll see if the same wisdom wins the day if and when the city appeals to the Washington Supreme Court.
SOURCE
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For more blog postings from me, see TONGUE-TIED, EDUCATION WATCH INTERNATIONAL, GREENIE WATCH, POLITICAL CORRECTNESS WATCH, AUSTRALIAN POLITICS, and Paralipomena (Occasionally updated), a Coral reef compendium and an IQ compendium. (Both updated as news items come in). GUN WATCH is now mainly put together by Dean Weingarten. I also put up occasional updates on my Personal blog and each day I gather together my most substantial current writings on THE PSYCHOLOGIST.
Email me here (Hotmail address). My Home Pages are here (Academic) or here (Pictorial) or here (Personal)
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Postings from Brisbane, Australia by John J. Ray (M.A.; Ph.D.) -- former member of the Australia-Soviet Friendship Society, former anarcho-capitalist and former member of the British Conservative party. And now a "Deplorable"
When it comes to political incorrectness, I hit the trifecta. I talk about race, IQ and social class. I have an academic background in all three subjects but that wins me no forgiveness
At its most basic psychological level, conservatives are the contented people and Leftists are the discontented people. And both are largely dispositional, inborn -- which is why they so rarely change
As a good academic, I first define my terms: A Leftist is a person who is so dissatisfied with the way things naturally are that he/she is prepared to use force to make people behave in ways that they otherwise would not.
So an essential feature of Leftism is that they think they have the right to tell other people what to do
Leftists are the disgruntled folk. They see things in the world that are not ideal and conclude therefore that they have the right to change those things by force. Conservative explanations of why things are not ideal -- and never can be -- fall on deaf ears
Leftists aim to deliver dismay and disruption into other people's lives -- and they are good at achieving that.
German has a word that describes most Leftists well: "Scheinheilig" - A person who appears to be very kind, soft natured, and filled with pure goodness but behind the facade, has a vile nature. He is seemingly holy but is an unscrupulous person on the inside.
The new faith is very oppressive: Leftist orthodoxy is the new dominant religion of the Western world and it is every bit as bigoted and oppressive as Christianity was at its worst
There are two varieties of authoritarian Leftism. Fascists are soft Leftists, preaching one big happy family -- "Better together" in other words. Communists are hard Leftists, preaching class war.
Socialism is the most evil malady ever to afflict the human brain. The death toll in WWII alone tells you that
You do still occasionally see some mention of the old idea that Leftist parties represent the worker. In the case of the U.S. Democrats that is long gone. Now they want to REFORM the worker. No wonder most working class Americans these days vote Republican. Democrats are the party of the minorities and the smug
We live in a country where the people own the Government and not in a country where the Government owns the people -- Churchill
The Left have a lot in common with tortoises. They have a thick mental shell that protects them from the reality of the world about them
Definition of a Socialist: Someone who wants everything you have...except your job.
Let's start with some thought-provoking graphics
Israel: A great powerhouse of the human spirit
The difference in practice
The United Nations: A great ideal but a sordid reality
Alfred Dreyfus, a reminder of French antisemitism still relevant today
Eugenio Pacelli, a righteous Gentile, a true man of God and a brilliant Pope
Leftism in one picture:
The "steamroller" above who got steamrollered by his own hubris. Spitzer is a warning of how self-destructive a vast ego can be -- and also of how destructive of others it can be.
R.I.P. Augusto Pinochet. Pinochet deposed a law-defying Marxist President at the express and desperate invitation of the Chilean parliament. Allende had just burnt the electoral rolls so it wasn't hard to see what was coming. Pinochet pioneered the free-market reforms which Reagan and Thatcher later unleashed to world-changing effect. That he used far-Leftist methods to suppress far-Leftist violence is reasonable if not ideal. The Leftist view that they should have a monopoly of violence and that others should follow the law is a total absurdity which shows only that their hate overcomes their reason
Leftist writers usually seem quite reasonable and persuasive at first glance. The problem is not what they say but what they don't say. Leftist beliefs are so counterfactual ("all men are equal", "all men are brothers" etc.) that to be a Leftist you have to have a talent for blotting out from your mind facts that don't suit you. And that is what you see in Leftist writing: A very selective view of reality. Facts that disrupt a Leftist story are simply ignored. Leftist writing is cherrypicking on a grand scale
So if ever you read something written by a Leftist that sounds totally reasonable, you have an urgent need to find out what other people say on that topic. The Leftist will almost certainly have told only half the story
We conservatives have the facts on our side, which is why Leftists never want to debate us and do their best to shut us up. It's very revealing the way they go to great lengths to suppress conservative speech at universities. Universities should be where the best and brightest Leftists are to be found but even they cannot stand the intellectual challenge that conservatism poses for them. It is clearly a great threat to them. If what we say were ridiculous or wrong, they would grab every opportunity to let us know it
A conservative does not hanker after the new; He hankers after the good. Leftists hanker after the untested
Just one thing is sufficient to tell all and sundry what an unamerican lamebrain Obama is. He pronounced an army corps as an army "corpse" Link here. Can you imagine any previous American president doing that? Many were men with significant personal experience in the armed forces in their youth.
A favorite Leftist saying sums up the whole of Leftism: "To make an omelette, you've got to break eggs". They want to change some state of affairs and don't care who or what they destroy or damage in the process. They think their alleged good intentions are sufficient to absolve them from all blame for even the most evil deeds
In practical politics, the art of Leftism is to sound good while proposing something destructive
Leftists are the "we know best" people, meaning that they are intrinsically arrogant. Matthew chapter 6 would not be for them. And arrogance leads directly into authoritarianism
Leftism is fundamentally authoritarian. Whether by revolution or by legislation, Leftists aim to change what people can and must do. When in 2008 Obama said that he wanted to "fundamentally transform" America, he was not talking about America's geography or topography but rather about American people. He wanted them to stop doing things that they wanted to do and make them do things that they did not want to do. Can you get a better definition of authoritarianism than that?
And note that an American President is elected to administer the law, not make it. That seems to have escaped Mr Obama
That Leftism is intrinsically authoritarian is not a new insight. It was well understood by none other than Friedrich Engels (Yes. THAT Engels). His clever short essay On authority was written as a reproof to the dreamy Anarchist Left of his day. It concludes: "A revolution is certainly the most authoritarian thing there is; it is the act whereby one part of the population imposes its will upon the other part by means of rifles, bayonets and cannon — authoritarian means"
Inside Every Liberal is a Totalitarian Screaming to Get Out
Insight: "A man's admiration for absolute government is proportionate to the contempt he feels for those around him." —Alexis de Tocqueville (1805-1859)
Leftists think of themselves as the new nobility
Many people in literary and academic circles today who once supported Stalin and his heirs are generally held blameless and may even still be admired whereas anybody who gave the slightest hint of support for the similarly brutal Hitler regime is an utter polecat and pariah. Why? Because Hitler's enemies were "only" the Jews whereas Stalin's enemies were those the modern day Left still hates -- people who are doing well for themselves materially. Modern day Leftists understand and excuse Stalin and his supporters because Stalin's hates are their hates.
Hatred has long been a central pillar of leftist ideologies, premised as they are on trampling individual rights for the sake of a collectivist plan. Karl Marx boasted that he was “the greatest hater of the so-called positive.” In 1923, V.I. Lenin chillingly declared to the Soviet Commissars of Education, “We must teach our children to hate. Hatred is the basis of communism.” In his tract “Left-Wing Communism,” Lenin went so far as to assert that hatred was “the basis of every socialist and Communist movement.”
If you understand that Leftism is hate, everything falls into place.
The strongest way of influencing people is to convince them that you will do them some good. Leftists and con-men misuse that
Leftists believe only what they want to believe. So presenting evidence contradicting their beliefs simply enrages them. They do not learn from it
Psychological defence mechanisms such as projection play a large part in Leftist thinking and discourse. So their frantic search for evil in the words and deeds of others is easily understandable. The evil is in themselves.
Leftists who think that they can conjure up paradise out of their own limited brains are simply fools -- arrogant and dangerous fools. They essentially know nothing. Conservatives learn from the thousands of years of human brains that have preceded us -- including the Bible, the ancient Greeks and much else. The death of Socrates is, for instance, an amazing prefiguration of the intolerant 21st century. Ask any conservative stranded in academe about his freedom of speech
Thomas Sowell: “There are no solutions, only trade-offs.” Leftists don't understand that -- which is a major factor behind their simplistic thinking. They just never see the trade-offs. But implementing any Leftist idea will hit us all with the trade-offs
"The best laid plans of mice and men gang aft agley"[go oft astray] is a well known line from a famous poem by the great Scottish poet, Robert Burns. But the next line is even wiser: "And leave us nought but grief and pain for promised joy". Burns was a Leftist of sorts so he knew how often their theories fail badly.
Mostly, luck happens when opportunity meets preparation.
Most Leftist claims are simply propaganda. Those who utter such claims must know that they are not telling the whole story. Hitler described his Marxist adversaries as "lying with a virtuosity that would bend iron beams". At the risk of ad hominem shrieks, I think that image is too good to remain disused.
Conservatives adapt to the world they live in. Leftists want to change the world to suit themselves
Given their dislike of the world they live in, it would be a surprise if Leftists were patriotic and loved their own people. Prominent English Leftist politician Jack Straw probably said it best: "The English as a race are not worth saving"
In his 1888 book, The Anti-Christ Friedrich Nietzsche argues that we should treat the common man well and kindly because he is the backdrop against which the exceptional man can be seen. So Nietzsche deplores those who agitate the common man: "Whom do I hate most among the rabble of today? The socialist rabble, the chandala [outcast] apostles, who undermine the instinct, the pleasure, the worker's sense of satisfaction with his small existence—who make him envious, who teach him revenge. The source of wrong is never unequal rights but the claim of “equal” rights"
Why do conservatives respect tradition and rely on the past in many ways? Because they want to know what works and the past is the chief source of evidence on that. Leftists are more faith-based. They cling to their theories (e.g. global warming) with religious fervour, even though theories are often wrong
Thinking that you "know best" is an intrinsically precarious and foolish stance -- because nobody does. Reality is so complex and unpredictable that it can rarely be predicted far ahead. Conservatives can see that and that is why conservatives always want change to be done gradually, in a step by step way. So the Leftist often finds the things he "knows" to be out of step with reality, which challenges him and his ego. Sadly, rather than abandoning the things he "knows", he usually resorts to psychological defence mechanisms such as denial and projection. He is largely impervious to argument because he has to be. He can't afford to let reality in.
A prize example of the Leftist tendency to projection (seeing your own faults in others) is the absurd Robert "Bob" Altemeyer, an acclaimed psychologist and father of a Canadian Leftist politician. Altemeyer claims that there is no such thing as Leftist authoritarianism and that it is conservatives who are "Enemies of Freedom". That Leftists (e.g. Mrs Obama) are such enemies of freedom that they even want to dictate what people eat has apparently passed Altemeyer by. Even Stalin did not go that far. And there is the little fact that all the great authoritarian regimes of the 20th century (Stalin, Hitler and Mao) were socialist. Freud saw reliance on defence mechanisms such as projection as being maladjusted. It is difficult to dispute that. Altemeyer is too illiterate to realize it but he is actually a good Hegelian. Hegel thought that "true" freedom was marching in step with a Left-led herd.
What libertarian said this? “The bureaucracy is a parasite on the body of society, a parasite which ‘chokes’ all its vital pores…The state is a parasitic organism”. It was VI Lenin, in August 1917, before he set up his own vastly bureaucratic state. He could see the problem but had no clue about how to solve it.
It was Democrat John F Kennedy who cut taxes and declared that “a rising tide lifts all boats"
Leftist stupidity is a special class of stupidity. The people concerned are mostly not stupid in general but they have a character defect (mostly arrogance) that makes them impatient with complexity and unwilling to study it. So in their policies they repeatedly shoot themselves in the foot; They fail to attain their objectives. The world IS complex so a simplistic approach to it CANNOT work.
Seminal Leftist philosopher, G.W.F. Hegel said something that certainly applies to his fellow Leftists: "We learn from history that we do not learn from history". And he captured the Left in this saying too: "Evil resides in the very gaze which perceives Evil all around itself".
"A man who is not a socialist at age 20 has no heart; A man who is still a socialist at age 30 has no head". Who said that? Most people attribute it to Winston but as far as I can tell it was first said by Georges Clemenceau, French Premier in WWI -- whose own career approximated the transition concerned. And he in turn was probably updating an earlier saying about monarchy versus Republicanism by Guizot. Other attributions here. There is in fact a normal drift from Left to Right as people get older. Both Reagan and Churchill started out as liberals
Funny how to the Leftist intelligentsia poor blacks are 'oppressed' and poor whites are 'trash'. Racism, anyone?
MESSAGE to Leftists: Even if you killed all conservatives tomorrow, you would just end up in another Soviet Union. Conservatives are all that stand between you and that dismal fate. And you may not even survive at all. Stalin killed off all the old Bolsheviks.
A Conservative manifesto from England -- The inimitable Jacob Rees-Mogg
MYTH BUSTING:
The Big Lie of the late 20th century was that Nazism was Rightist. It was in fact typical of the Leftism of its day. It was only to the Right of Stalin's Communism. The very word "Nazi" is a German abbreviation for "National Socialist" (Nationalsozialist) and the full name of Hitler's political party (translated) was "The National Socialist German Workers' Party" (In German: Nationalsozialistische Deutsche Arbeiterpartei)
Just the name of Hitler's political party should be sufficient to reject the claim that Hitler was "Right wing" but Leftists sometimes retort that the name "Democratic People's Republic of Korea" is not informative, in that it is the name of a dismal Stalinist tyranny. But "People's Republic" is a normal name for a Communist country whereas I know of no conservative political party that calls itself a "Socialist Worker's Party". Such parties are in fact usually of the extreme Left (Trotskyite etc.)
Most people find the viciousness of the Nazis to be incomprehensible -- for instance what they did in their concentration camps. But you just have to read a little of the vileness that pours out from modern-day "liberals" in their Twitter and blog comments to understand it all very well. Leftists haven't changed. They are still boiling with hate
Hatred as a motivating force for political strategy leads to misguided decisions. “Hatred is blind,” as Alexandre Dumas warned, “rage carries you away; and he who pours out vengeance runs the risk of tasting a bitter draught.”
Who said this in 1968? "I am not, and never have been, a man of the right. My position was on the Left and is now in the centre of politics". It was Sir Oswald Mosley, founder and leader of the British Union of Fascists
The term "Fascism" is mostly used by the Left as a brainless term of abuse. But when they do make a serious attempt to define it, they produce very complex and elaborate definitions -- e.g. here and here. In fact, Fascism is simply extreme socialism plus nationalism. But great gyrations are needed to avoid mentioning the first part of that recipe, of course.
Three examples of Leftist racism below (much more here and here):
Jesse Owens, the African-American hero of the 1936 Berlin Olympic Games, said "Hitler didn't snub me – it was our president who snubbed me. The president didn't even send me a telegram." Democrat Franklin D. Roosevelt never even invited the quadruple gold medal-winner to the White House
Beatrice Webb, a founder of the London School of Economics and the Fabian Society, and married to a Labour MP, mused in 1922 on whether when English children were "dying from lack of milk", one should extend "the charitable impulse" to Russian and Chinese children who, if saved this year, might anyway die next. Besides, she continued, there was "the larger question of whether those races are desirable inhabitants" and "obviously" one wouldn't "spend one's available income" on "a Central African negro".
Hugh Dalton, offered the Colonial Office during Attlee's 1945-51 Labour government, turned it down because "I had a horrid vision of pullulating, poverty stricken, diseased nigger communities, for whom one can do nothing in the short run and who, the more one tries to help them, are querulous and ungrateful."
The Zimmerman case is an excellent proof that the Left is deep-down racist
Defensible and indefensible usages of the term "racism"
The book, The authoritarian personality, authored by T.W. Adorno et al. in 1950, has been massively popular among psychologists. It claims that a set of ideas that were popular in the "Progressive"-dominated America of the prewar era were "authoritarian". Leftist regimes always are authoritarian so that claim was not a big problem. What was quite amazing however is that Adorno et al. identified such ideas as "conservative". They were in fact simply popular ideas of the day but ones that had been most heavily promoted by the Left right up until the then-recent WWII. See here for details of prewar "Progressive" thinking.
Leftist psychologists have an amusingly simplistic conception of military organizations and military men. They seem to base it on occasions they have seen troops marching together on parade rather than any real knowledge of military men and the military life. They think that military men are "rigid" -- automatons who are unable to adjust to new challenges or think for themselves. What is incomprehensible to them is that being kadaver gehorsam (to use the extreme Prussian term for following orders) actually requires great flexibility -- enough flexibility to put your own ideas and wishes aside and do something very difficult. Ask any soldier if all commands are easy to obey.
It would be very easy for me to say that I am too much of an individual for the army but I did in fact join the army and enjoy it greatly, as most men do. In my observation, ALL army men are individuals. It is just that they accept discipline in order to be militarily efficient -- which is the whole point of the exercise. But that's too complex for simplistic Leftist thinking, of course
Franklin Delano Roosevelt was a war criminal. Both British and American codebreakers had cracked the Japanese naval code so FDR knew what was coming at Pearl Harbor. But for his own political reasons he warned no-one there. So responsibility for the civilian and military deaths at Pearl Harbor lies with FDR as well as with the Japanese. The huge firepower available at Pearl Harbor, both aboard ship and on land, could have largely neutered the attack. Can you imagine 8 battleships and various lesser craft firing all their AA batteries as the Japanese came in? The Japanese naval airforce would have been annihilated and the war would have been over before it began.
FDR prolonged the Depression. He certainly didn't cure it.
WWII did NOT end the Great Depression. It just concealed it. It in fact made living standards worse
FDR appointed a known KKK member, Hugo Black, to the Supreme Court
Joe McCarthy was eventually proved right after the fall of the Soviet Union. To accuse anyone of McCarthyism is to accuse them of accuracy!
The KKK was intimately associated with the Democratic party. They ATTACKED Republicans!
High Level of Welfare Use by Legal and Illegal Immigrants in the USA. Low skill immigrants receive 4 to 5 dollars of benefits for every dollar in taxes paid
People who mention differences in black vs. white IQ are these days almost universally howled down and subjected to the most extreme abuse. I am a psychometrician, however, so I feel obliged to defend the scientific truth of the matter: The average African adult has about the same IQ as an average white 11-year-old and African Americans (who are partly white in ancestry) average out at a mental age of 14. The American Psychological Association is generally Left-leaning but it is the world's most prestigious body of academic psychologists. And even they have had to concede that sort of gap (one SD) in black vs. white average IQ. 11-year olds can do a lot of things but they also have their limits and there are times when such limits need to be allowed for.
The association between high IQ and long life is overwhelmingly genetic: "In the combined sample the genetic contribution to the covariance was 95%"
The Dark Ages were not dark
Judged by his deeds, Abraham Lincoln was one of the bloodiest villains ever to walk the Earth. See here. And: America's uncivil war was caused by trade protectionism. The slavery issue was just camouflage, as Abraham Lincoln himself admitted. See also here
At the beginning of the North/South War, Confederate general Robert E. Lee did not own any slaves. Union General Ulysses L. Grant did.
Was slavery already washed up by the tides of history before Lincoln took it on? Eric Williams in his book "Capitalism and Slavery" tells us: “The commercial capitalism of the eighteenth century developed the wealth of Europe by means of slavery and monopoly. But in so doing it helped to create the industrial capitalism of the nineteenth century, which turned round and destroyed the power of commercial capitalism, slavery, and all its works. Without a grasp of these economic changes the history of the period is meaningless.”
Did William Zantzinger kill poor Hattie Carroll?
Did Bismarck predict where WWI would start or was it just a "free" translation by Churchill?
Conrad Black on the Declaration of Independence
Malcolm Gladwell: "There is more of reality and wisdom in a Chinese fortune cookie than can be found anywhere in Gladwell’s pages"
Some people are born bad -- confirmed by genetics research
The dark side of American exceptionalism: America could well be seen as the land of folly. It fought two unnecessary civil wars, would have done well to keep out of two world wars, endured the extraordinary folly of Prohibition and twice elected a traitor President -- Barack Obama. That America remains a good place to be is a tribute to the energy and hard work of individual Americans.
“From the fact that people are very different it follows that, if we treat them equally, the result must be inequality in their actual position, and that the only way to place them in an equal position would be to treat them differently. Equality before the law and material equality are therefore not only different but are in conflict with each other; and we can achieve either one or the other, but not both at the same time.” ? Friedrich Hayek, The Constitution Of Liberty
IN BRIEF:
The 10 "cannots" (By William J. H. Boetcker) that Leftist politicians ignore:
*You cannot bring about prosperity by discouraging thrift.
* You cannot strengthen the weak by weakening the strong.
* You cannot help little men by tearing down big men.
* You cannot lift the wage earner by pulling down the wage payer.
* You cannot help the poor by destroying the rich.
* You cannot establish sound security on borrowed money.
* You cannot further the brotherhood of man by inciting class hatred.
* You cannot keep out of trouble by spending more than you earn.
* You cannot build character and courage by destroying men's initiative and independence.
* And you cannot help men permanently by doing for them what they can and should do for themselves.
A good short definition of conservative: "One who wants you to keep your hand out of his pocket."
Beware of good intentions. They mostly lead to coercion
A gargantuan case of hubris, coupled with stunning level of ignorance about how the real world works, is the essence of progressivism.
The U.S. Constitution is neither "living" nor dead. It is fixed until it is amended. But amending it is the privilege of the people, not of politicians or judges
It is hard to imagine a more stupid or more dangerous way of making decisions than by putting those decisions in the hands of people who pay no price for being wrong - Thomas Sowell
Leftists think that utopia can be coerced into existence -- so no dishonesty or brutality is beyond them in pursuit of that "noble" goal
"England is perhaps the only great country whose intellectuals are ashamed of their own nationality. In left-wing circles it is always felt that there is something slightly disgraceful in being an Englishman and that it is a duty to snigger at every English institution" -- George Orwell
Was 16th century science pioneer Paracelsus a libertarian? His motto was "Alterius non sit qui suus esse potest" which means "Let no man belong to another who can belong to himself."
"When using today's model of society as a rule, most of history will be found to be full of oppression, bias, and bigotry." What today's arrogant judges of history fail to realize is that they, too, will be judged. What will Americans of 100 years from now make of, say, speech codes, political correctness, and zero tolerance - to name only three? Assuming, of course, there will still be an America that we, today, would recognize. Given the rogue Federal government spy apparatus, I am not at all sure of that. -- Paul Havemann
Economist Ludwig von Mises (1881-1973): "The champions of socialism call themselves progressives, but they recommend a system which is characterized by rigid observance of routine and by a resistance to every kind of improvement. They call themselves liberals, but they are intent upon abolishing liberty. They call themselves democrats, but they yearn for dictatorship. They call themselves revolutionaries, but they want to make the government omnipotent. They promise the blessings of the Garden of Eden, but they plan to transform the world into a gigantic post office."
It's the shared hatred of the rest of us that unites Islamists and the Left.
American liberals don't love America. They despise it. All they love is their own fantasy of what America could become. They are false patriots.
The Democratic Party: Con-men elected by the ignorant and the arrogant
The Democratic Party is a strange amalgam of elites, would-be elites and minorities. No wonder their policies are so confused and irrational
Why are conservatives more at ease with religion? Because it is basic to conservatism that some things are unknowable, and religious people have to accept that too. Leftists think that they know it all and feel threatened by any exceptions to that. Thinking that you know it all is however the pride that comes before a fall.
The characteristic emotion of the Leftist is not envy. It's rage
Leftists are committed to grievance, not truth
The British Left poured out a torrent of hate for Margaret Thatcher on the occasion of her death. She rescued Britain from chaos and restored Britain's prosperity. What's not to hate about that?
Something you didn't know about Margaret Thatcher
The world's dumbest investor? Without doubt it is Uncle Sam. Nobody anywhere could rival the scale of the losses on "investments" made under the Obama administration
"Behind the honeyed but patently absurd pleas for equality is a ruthless drive for placing themselves (the elites) at the top of a new hierarchy of power" -- Murray Rothbard - Egalitarianism and the Elites (1995)
A liberal is someone who feels a great debt to his fellow man, which debt he proposes to pay off with your money. -- G. Gordon Liddy
"World socialism as a whole, and all the figures associated with it, are shrouded in legend; its contradictions are forgotten or concealed; it does not respond to arguments but continually ignores them--all this stems from the mist of irrationality that surrounds socialism and from its instinctive aversion to scientific analysis... The doctrines of socialism seethe with contradictions, its theories are at constant odds with its practice, yet due to a powerful instinct these contradictions do not in the least hinder the unending propaganda of socialism. Indeed, no precise, distinct socialism even exists; instead there is only a vague, rosy notion of something noble and good, of equality, communal ownership, and justice: the advent of these things will bring instant euphoria and a social order beyond reproach." -- Solzhenitsyn
"The heart of the wise inclines to the right, but the heart of the fool to the left." -- Ecclesiastes 10:2 (NIV)
My reading of history convinces me that most bad government results from too much government. -- Thomas Jefferson
"Much that passes as idealism is disguised hatred or disguised love of power" -- Bertrand Russell
Evan Sayet: The Left sides "...invariably with evil over good, wrong over right, and the behaviors that lead to failure over those that lead to success." (t=5:35+ on video)
The Republicans are the gracious side of American politics. It is the Democrats who are the nasty party, the haters
Wanting to stay out of the quarrels of other nations is conservative -- but conservatives will fight if attacked or seriously endangered. Anglo/Irish statesman Lord Castlereagh (1769-1822), who led the political coalition that defeated Napoleon, was an isolationist, as were traditional American conservatives.
Some wisdom from the past: "The bosom of America is open to receive not only the opulent and respectable stranger, but the oppressed and persecuted of all nations and religions; whom we shall welcome to a participation of all our rights and privileges, if by decency and propriety of conduct they appear to merit the enjoyment." —George Washington, 1783
Some useful definitions:
If a conservative doesn't like guns, he doesn't buy one. If a liberal doesn't like guns, he wants all guns outlawed.
If a conservative is a vegetarian, he doesn't eat meat. If a liberal is a vegetarian, he wants all meat products banned for everyone.
If a conservative is down-and-out, he thinks about how to better his situation. A liberal wonders who is going to take care of him.
If a conservative doesn't like a talk show host, he switches channels. Liberals demand that those they don't like be shut down.
If a conservative is a non-believer, he doesn't go to church. A liberal non-believer wants any mention of God and religion silenced. (Unless it's a foreign religion, of course!)
If a conservative decides he needs health care, he goes about shopping for it, or may choose a job that provides it. A liberal demands that the rest of us pay for his.
There is better evidence for creation than there is for the Leftist claim that “gender” is a “social construct”. Most Leftist claims seem to be faith-based rather than founded on the facts
Leftists are classic weak characters. They dish out abuse by the bucketload but cannot take it when they get it back. Witness the Loughner hysteria.
Death taxes: You would expect a conscientious person, of whatever degree of intelligence, to reflect on the strange contradiction involved in denying people the right to unearned wealth, while supporting programs that give people unearned wealth.
America is no longer the land of the free. It is now the land of the regulated -- though it is not alone in that, of course
The Leftist motto: "I love humanity. It's just people I can't stand"
Why are Leftists always talking about hate? Because it fills their own hearts
Envy is a strong and widespread human emotion so there has alway been widespread support for policies of economic "levelling". Both the USA and the modern-day State of Israel were founded by communists but reality taught both societies that respect for the individual gave much better outcomes than levelling ideas. Sadly, there are many people in both societies in whom hatred for others is so strong that they are incapable of respect for the individual. The destructiveness of what they support causes them to call themselves many names in different times and places but they are the backbone of the political Left
Gore Vidal: "Every time a friend succeeds, I die a little". Vidal was of course a Leftist
The large number of rich Leftists suggests that, for them, envy is secondary. They are directly driven by hatred and scorn for many of the other people that they see about them. Hatred of others can be rooted in many things, not only in envy. But the haters come together as the Left. Some evidence here showing that envy is not what defines the Left
Leftists hate the world around them and want to change it: the people in it most particularly. Conservatives just want to be left alone to make their own decisions and follow their own values.
The failure of the Soviet experiment has definitely made the American Left more vicious and hate-filled than they were. The plain failure of what passed for ideas among them has enraged rather than humbled them.
Ronald Reagan famously observed that the status quo is Latin for “the mess we’re in.” So much for the vacant Leftist claim that conservatives are simply defenders of the status quo. They think that conservatives are as lacking in principles as they are.
Was Confucius a conservative? The following saying would seem to reflect good conservative caution: "The superior man, when resting in safety, does not forget that danger may come. When in a state of security he does not forget the possibility of ruin. When all is orderly, he does not forget that disorder may come. Thus his person is not endangered, and his States and all their clans are preserved."
The shallow thinkers of the Left sometimes claim that conservatives want to impose their own will on others in the matter of abortion. To make that claim is however to confuse religion with politics. Conservatives are in fact divided about their response to abortion. The REAL opposition to abortion is religious rather than political. And the church which has historically tended to support the LEFT -- the Roman Catholic church -- is the most fervent in the anti-abortion cause. Conservatives are indeed the one side of politics to have moral qualms on the issue but they tend to seek a middle road in dealing with it. Taking the issue to the point of legal prohibitions is a religious doctrine rather than a conservative one -- and the religion concerned may or may not be characteristically conservative. More on that here
Some Leftist hatred arises from the fact that they blame "society" for their own personal problems and inadequacies
The Leftist hunger for change to the society that they hate leads to a hunger for control over other people. And they will do and say anything to get that control: "Power at any price". Leftist politicians are mostly self-aggrandizing crooks who gain power by deceiving the uninformed with snake-oil promises -- power which they invariably use to destroy. Destruction is all that they are good at. Destruction is what haters do.
Leftists are consistent only in their hate. They don't have principles. How can they when "there is no such thing as right and wrong"? All they have is postures, pretend-principles that can be changed as easily as one changes one's shirt
A Leftist assumption: Making money doesn't entitle you to it, but wanting money does.
"Politicians never accuse you of 'greed' for wanting other people's money -- only for wanting to keep your own money." --columnist Joe Sobran (1946-2010)
Leftist policies are candy-coated rat poison that may appear appealing at first, but inevitably do a lot of damage to everyone impacted by them.
A tribute and thanks to Mary Jo Kopechne. Her death was reprehensible but she probably did more by her death that she ever would have in life: She spared the world a President Ted Kennedy. That the heap of corruption that was Ted Kennedy died peacefully in his bed is one of the clearest demonstrations that we do not live in a just world. Even Joe Stalin seems to have been smothered to death by Nikita Khrushchev
I often wonder why Leftists refer to conservatives as "wingnuts". A wingnut is a very useful device that adds versatility wherever it is used. Clearly, Leftists are not even good at abuse. Once they have accused their opponents of racism and Nazism, their cupboard is bare. Similarly, Leftists seem to think it is a devastating critique to refer to "Worldnet Daily" as "Worldnut Daily". The poverty of their argumentation is truly pitiful
The Leftist assertion that there is no such thing as right and wrong has a distinguished history. It was Pontius Pilate who said "What is truth?" (John 18:38). From a Christian viewpoint, the assertion is undoubtedly the Devil's gospel
Even in the Old Testament they knew about "Postmodernism": "Woe unto them that call evil good, and good evil; that put darkness for light, and light for darkness; that put bitter for sweet, and sweet for bitter!" - Isaiah 5:20 (KJV)
Was Solomon the first conservative? "The hearts of men are full of evil and madness is in their hearts" -- Ecclesiastes: 9:3 (RSV). He could almost have been talking about Global Warming.
Leftist hatred of Christianity goes back as far as the massacre of the Carmelite nuns during the French revolution. Yancey has written a whole book tabulating modern Leftist hatred of Christians. It is a rival religion to Leftism.
"If one rejects laissez faire on account of man's fallibility and moral weakness, one must for the same reason also reject every kind of government action." - Ludwig von Mises
The naive scholar who searches for a consistent Leftist program will not find it. What there is consists only in the negation of the present.
Because of their need to be different from the mainstream, Leftists are very good at pretending that sow's ears are silk purses
Among intelligent people, Leftism is a character defect. Leftists HATE success in others -- which is why notably successful societies such as the USA and Israel are hated and failures such as the Palestinians can do no wrong.
A Leftist's beliefs are all designed to pander to his ego. So when you have an argument with a Leftist, you are not really discussing the facts. You are threatening his self esteem. Which is why the normal Leftist response to challenge is mere abuse.
Because of the fragility of a Leftist's ego, anything that threatens it is intolerable and provokes rage. So most Leftist blogs can be summarized in one sentence: "How DARE anybody question what I believe!". Rage and abuse substitute for an appeal to facts and reason.
Because their beliefs serve their ego rather than reality, Leftists just KNOW what is good for us. Conservatives need evidence.
Absolute certainty is the privilege of uneducated men and fanatics. -- C.J. Keyser
Hell is paved with good intentions" -- Boswell's Life of Johnson of 1775
"Almost all professors of the arts and sciences are egregiously conceited, and derive their happiness from their conceit" -- Erasmus
THE FALSIFICATION OF HISTORY HAS DONE MORE TO IMPEDE HUMAN DEVELOPMENT THAN ANY ONE THING KNOWN TO MANKIND -- ROUSSEAU
"Seest thou a man wise in his own conceit? there is more hope of a fool than of him" (Proverbs 26: 12). I think that sums up Leftists pretty well.
Eminent British astrophysicist Sir Arthur Stanley Eddington is often quoted as saying: "Not only is the universe stranger than we imagine, it is stranger than we can imagine." It was probably in fact said by his contemporary, J.B.S. Haldane. But regardless of authorship, it could well be a conservative credo not only about the cosmos but also about human beings and human society. Mankind is too complex to be summed up by simple rules and even complex rules are only approximations with many exceptions.
Politics is the only thing Leftists know about. They know nothing of economics, history or business. Their only expertise is in promoting feelings of grievance
Socialism makes the individual the slave of the state -- capitalism frees them.
Many readers here will have noticed that what I say about Leftists sometimes sounds reminiscent of what Leftists say about conservatives. There is an excellent reason for that. Leftists are great "projectors" (people who see their own faults in others). So a good first step in finding out what is true of Leftists is to look at what they say about conservatives! They even accuse conservatives of projection (of course).
The research shows clearly that one's Left/Right stance is strongly genetically inherited but nobody knows just what specifically is inherited. What is inherited that makes people Leftist or Rightist? There is any amount of evidence that personality traits are strongly genetically inherited so my proposal is that hard-core Leftists are people who tend to let their emotions (including hatred and envy) run away with them and who are much more in need of seeing themselves as better than others -- two attributes that are probably related to one another. Such Leftists may be an evolutionary leftover from a more primitive past.
Leftists seem to believe that if someone like Al Gore says it, it must be right. They obviously have a strong need for an authority figure. The fact that the two most authoritarian regimes of the 20th century (Nazi Germany and Soviet Russia) were socialist is thus no surprise. Leftists often accuse conservatives of being "authoritarian" but that is just part of their usual "projective" strategy -- seeing in others what is really true of themselves.
"With their infernal racial set-asides, racial quotas, and race norming, liberals share many of the Klan's premises. The Klan sees the world in terms of race and ethnicity. So do liberals! Indeed, liberals and white supremacists are the only people left in America who are neurotically obsessed with race. Conservatives champion a color-blind society" -- Ann Coulter
Politicians are in general only a little above average in intelligence so the idea that they can make better decisions for us that we can make ourselves is laughable
A quote from the late Dr. Adrian Rogers: "You cannot legislate the poor into freedom by legislating the wealthy out of freedom. What one person receives without working for, another person must work for without receiving. The government cannot give to anybody anything that the government does not first take from somebody else. When half of the people get the idea that they do not have to work because the other half is going to take care of them, and when the other half gets the idea that it does no good to work because somebody else is going to get what they work for, that my dear friend, is about the end of any nation. You cannot multiply wealth by dividing it."
The Supreme Court of the United States is now and always has been a judicial abomination. Its guiding principles have always been political rather than judicial. It is not as political as Stalin's courts but its respect for the constitution is little better. Some recent abuses: The "equal treatment" provision of the 14th amendment was specifically written to outlaw racial discrimination yet the court has allowed various forms of "affirmative action" for decades -- when all such policies should have been completely stuck down immediately. The 2nd. amendment says that the right to bear arms shall not be infringed yet gun control laws infringe it in every State in the union. The 1st amendment provides that speech shall be freely exercised yet the court has upheld various restrictions on the financing and display of political advertising. The court has found a right to abortion in the constitution when the word abortion is not even mentioned there. The court invents rights that do not exist and denies rights that do.
"Some action that is unconstitutional has much to recommend it" -- Elena Kagan, nominated to SCOTUS by Obama
Frank Sulloway, the anti-scientist
The basic aim of all bureaucrats is to maximize their funding and minimize their workload
A lesson in Australian: When an Australian calls someone a "big-noter", he is saying that the person is a chronic and rather pathetic seeker of admiration -- as in someone who often pulls out "big notes" (e.g. $100.00 bills) to pay for things, thus endeavouring to create the impression that he is rich. The term describes the mentality rather than the actual behavior with money and it aptly describes many Leftists. When they purport to show "compassion" by advocating things that cost themselves nothing (e.g. advocating more taxes on "the rich" to help "the poor"), an Australian might say that the Leftist is "big-noting himself". There is an example of the usage here. The term conveys contempt. There is a wise description of Australians generally here
Some ancient wisdom for Leftists: "Be not righteous overmuch; neither make thyself over wise: Why shouldest thou die before thy time?" -- Ecclesiastes 7:16
Jesse Jackson: "There is nothing more painful to me at this stage in my life than to walk down the street and hear footsteps and start thinking about robbery -- then look around and see somebody white and feel relieved." There ARE important racial differences.
Some Jimmy Carter wisdom: "I think it's inevitable that there will be a lower standard of living than what everybody had always anticipated," he told advisers in 1979. "there's going to be a downward turning."
Heritage is what survives death: Very rare and hence very valuable
Big business is not your friend. As Adam Smith said: "People of the same trade seldom meet together, even for merriment and diversion, but the conversation ends in a conspiracy against the public, or in some contrivance to raise prices. It is impossible indeed to prevent such meetings, by any law which either could be executed, or would be consistent with liberty or justice. But though the law cannot hinder people of the same trade from sometimes assembling together, it ought to do nothing to facilitate such assemblies; much less to render them necessary
How can I accept the Communist doctrine, which sets up as its bible, above and beyond criticism, an obsolete textbook which I know not only to be scientifically erroneous but without interest or application to the modern world? How can I adopt a creed which, preferring the mud to the fish, exalts the boorish proletariat above the bourgeoisie and the intelligentsia, who with all their faults, are the quality of life and surely carry the seeds of all human achievement? Even if we need a religion, how can we find it in the turbid rubbish of the red bookshop? It is hard for an educated, decent, intelligent son of Western Europe to find his ideals here, unless he has first suffered some strange and horrid process of conversion which has changed all his values. -- John Maynard Keynes
Some wisdom from "Bron" Waugh: "The purpose of politics is to help them [politicians] overcome these feelings of inferiority and compensate for their personal inadequacies in the pursuit of power"
"There are countless horrible things happening all over the country, and horrible people prospering, but we must never allow them to disturb our equanimity or deflect us from our sacred duty to sabotage and annoy them whenever possible"
The urge to pass new laws must be seen as an illness, not much different from the urge to bite old women. Anyone suspected of suffering from it should either be treated with the appropriate pills or, if it is too late for that, elected to Parliament [or Congress, as the case may be] and paid a huge salary with endless holidays, to do nothing whatever"
"It is my settled opinion, after some years as a political correspondent, that no one is attracted to a political career in the first place unless he is socially or emotionally crippled"
Two lines below of a famous hymn that would be incomprehensible to Leftists today ("honor"? "right"? "freedom?" Freedom to agree with them is the only freedom they believe in)
First to fight for right and freedom,
And to keep our honor clean
It is of course the hymn of the USMC -- still today the relentless warriors that they always were. Freedom needs a soldier
If any of the short observations above about Leftism seem wrong, note that they do not stand alone. The evidence for them is set out at great length in my MONOGRAPH on Leftism.
3 memoirs of "Supermac", a 20th century Disraeli (Aristocratic British Conservative Prime Minister -- 1957 to 1963 -- Harold Macmillan):
"It breaks my heart to see (I can't interfere or do anything at my age) what is happening in our country today - this terrible strike of the best men in the world, who beat the Kaiser's army and beat Hitler's army, and never gave in. Pointless, endless. We can't afford that kind of thing. And then this growing division which the noble Lord who has just spoken mentioned, of a comparatively prosperous south, and an ailing north and midlands. That can't go on." -- Mac on the British working class: "the best men in the world" (From his Maiden speech in the House of Lords, 13 November 1984)
"As a Conservative, I am naturally in favour of returning into private ownership and private management all those means of production and distribution which are now controlled by state capitalism"
During Macmillan's time as prime minister, average living standards steadily rose while numerous social reforms were carried out
"Talent hits a target no one else can hit; Genius hits a target no one else can see." --?Arthur Schopenhauer
JEWS AND ISRAEL
The Bible is an Israeli book
There is a view on both Left and Right that Jews are "too" influential. And it is true that they are more influential than their numbers would indicate. But they are exactly as influential as their IQs would indicate
To me, hostility to the Jews is a terrible tragedy. I weep for them at times. And I do literally put my money where my mouth is. I do at times send money to Israeli charities
My (Gentile) opinion of antisemitism: The Jews are the best we've got so killing them is killing us.
"And I will bless them that bless thee, and curse him that curseth thee: and in thee shall all families of the earth be blessed" -- Genesis 12:3
"O pray for the peace of Jerusalem: They shall prosper that love thee" Psalm 122:6.
If I forget you, Jerusalem, may my right hand forget its skill. May my tongue cling to the roof of my mouth if I do not remember you, if I do not consider Jerusalem my highest joy -- Psalm 137 (NIV)
Israel, like the Jews throughout history, is hated not for her vices but her virtues. Israel is hated, as the United States is hated, because Israel is successful, because Israel is free, and because Israel is good. As Maxim Gorky put it: “Whatever nonsense the anti-Semites may talk, they dislike the Jew only because he is obviously better, more adroit, and more willing and capable of work than they are.” Whether driven by culture or genes—or like most behavior, an inextricable mix—the fact of Jewish genius is demonstrable." -- George Gilder
To Leftist haters, all the basic rules of liberal society — rejection of hate speech, commitment to academic freedom, rooting out racism, the absolute commitment to human dignity — go out the window when the subject is Israel.
I have always liked the story of Gideon (See Judges chapters 6 to 8) and it is surely no surprise that in the present age Israel is the Gideon of nations: Few in numbers but big in power and impact.
Is the Israel Defence Force the most effective military force per capita since Genghis Khan? They probably are but they are also the most ethically advanced military force that the world has ever seen
If I were not an atheist, I would believe that God had a sense of humour. He gave his chosen people (the Jews) enormous advantages -- high intelligence and high drive -- but to keep it fair he deprived them of something hugely important too: Political sense. So Jews to this day tend very strongly to be Leftist -- even though the chief source of antisemitism for roughly the last 200 years has been the political Left!
And the other side of the coin is that Jews tend to despise conservatives and Christians. Yet American fundamentalist Christians are the bedrock of the vital American support for Israel, the ultimate bolthole for all Jews. So Jewish political irrationality seems to be a rather good example of the saying that "The LORD giveth and the LORD taketh away". There are many other examples of such perversity (or "balance"). The sometimes severe side-effects of most pharmaceutical drugs is an obvious one but there is another ethnic example too, a rather amusing one. Chinese people are in general smart and patient people but their rate of traffic accidents in China is about 10 times higher than what prevails in Western societies. They are brilliant mathematicians and fearless business entrepreneurs but at the same time bad drivers!
Conservatives, on the other hand, could be antisemitic on entirely rational grounds: Namely, the overwhelming Leftism of the Diaspora Jewish population as a whole. Because they judge the individual, however, only a tiny minority of conservative-oriented people make such general judgments. The longer Jews continue on their "stiff-necked" course, however, the more that is in danger of changing. The children of Israel have been a stiff necked people since the days of Moses, however, so they will no doubt continue to vote with their emotions rather than their reason.
I despair of the ADL. Jews have enough problems already and yet in the ADL one has a prominent Jewish organization that does its best to make itself offensive to Christians. Their Leftism is more important to them than the welfare of Jewry -- which is the exact opposite of what they ostensibly stand for! Jewish cleverness seems to vanish when politics are involved. Fortunately, Christians are true to their saviour and have loving hearts. Jewish dissatisfaction with the myopia of the ADL is outlined here. Note that Foxy was too grand to reply to it.
Fortunately for America, though, liberal Jews there are rapidly dying out through intermarriage and failure to reproduce. And the quite poisonous liberal Jews of Israel are not much better off. Judaism is slowly returning to Orthodoxy and the Orthodox tend to be conservative.
The above is good testimony to the accuracy of the basic conservative insight that almost anything in human life is too complex to be reduced to any simple rule and too complex to be reduced to any rule at all without allowance for important exceptions to the rule concerned
Amid their many virtues, one virtue is often lacking among Jews in general and Israelis in particular: Humility. And that's an antisemitic comment only if Hashem is antisemitic. From Moses on, the Hebrew prophets repeatedy accused the Israelites of being "stiff-necked" and urged them to repent. So it's no wonder that the greatest Jewish prophet of all -- Jesus -- not only urged humility but exemplified it in his life and death
"Why should the German be interested in the liberation of the Jew, if the Jew is not interested in the liberation of the German?... We recognize in Judaism, therefore, a general anti-social element of the present time... In the final analysis, the emancipation of the Jews is the emancipation of mankind from Judaism.... Indeed, in North America, the practical domination of Judaism over the Christian world has achieved as its unambiguous and normal expression that the preaching of the Gospel itself and the Christian ministry have become articles of trade... Money is the jealous god of Israel, in face of which no other god may exist". Who said that? Hitler? No. It was Karl Marx. See also here and here and here. For roughly two centuries now, antisemitism has, throughout the Western world, been principally associated with Leftism (including the socialist Hitler) -- as it is to this day. See here.
Karl Marx hated just about everyone. Even his father, the kindly Heinrich Marx, thought Karl was not much of a human being
Leftists call their hatred of Israel "Anti-Zionism" but Zionists are only a small minority in Israel
Some of the Leftist hatred of Israel is motivated by old-fashioned antisemitism (beliefs in Jewish "control" etc.) but most of it is just the regular Leftist hatred of success in others. And because the societies they inhabit do not give them the vast amount of recognition that their large but weak egos need, some of the most virulent haters of Israel and America live in those countries. So the hatred is the product of pathologically high self-esteem.
Their threatened egos sometimes drive Leftists into quite desperate flights from reality. For instance, they often call Israel an "Apartheid state" -- when it is in fact the Arab states that practice Apartheid -- witness the severe restrictions on Christians in Saudi Arabia. There are no such restrictions in Israel.
If the Palestinians put down their weapons, there'd be peace. If the Israelis put down their weapons, there'd be genocide.
ABOUT
Many people hunger and thirst after righteousness. Some find it in the hatreds of the Left. Others find it in the love of Christ. I don't hunger and thirst after righteousness at all. I hunger and thirst after truth. How old-fashioned can you get?
The kneejerk response of the Green/Left to people who challenge them is to say that the challenger is in the pay of "Big Oil", "Big Business", "Big Pharma", "Exxon-Mobil", "The Pioneer Fund" or some other entity that they see, in their childish way, as a boogeyman. So I think it might be useful for me to point out that I have NEVER received one cent from anybody by way of support for what I write. As a retired person, I live entirely on my own investments. I do not work for anybody and I am not beholden to anybody. And I have NO investments in oil companies, mining companies or "Big Pharma"
UPDATE: Despite my (statistical) aversion to mining stocks, I have recently bought a few shares in BHP -- the world's biggest miner, I gather. I run the grave risk of becoming a speaker of famous last words for saying this but I suspect that BHP is now so big as to be largely immune from the risks that plague most mining companies. I also know of no issue affecting BHP where my writings would have any relevance. The Left seem to have a visceral hatred of miners. I have never quite figured out why.
I imagine that few of my readers will understand it, but I am an unabashed monarchist. And, as someone who was born and bred in a monarchy and who still lives there (i.e. Australia), that gives me no conflicts at all. In theory, one's respect for the monarchy does not depend on who wears the crown but the impeccable behaviour of the present Queen does of course help perpetuate that respect. Aside from my huge respect for the Queen, however, my favourite member of the Royal family is the redheaded Prince Harry. The Royal family is of course a military family and Prince Harry is a great example of that. As one of the world's most privileged people, he could well be an idle layabout but instead he loves his life in the army. When his girlfriend Chelsy ditched him because he was so often away, Prince Harry said: "I love Chelsy but the army comes first". A perfect military man! I doubt that many women would understand or approve of his attitude but perhaps my own small army background powers my approval of that attitude.
I imagine that most Americans might find this rather mad -- but I believe that a constitutional Monarchy is the best form of government presently available. Can a libertarian be a Monarchist? I think so -- and prominent British libertarian Sean Gabb seems to think so too! Long live the Queen! (And note that Australia ranks well above the USA on the Index of Economic freedom. Heh!)
The Australian flag with the Union Jack quartered in it
Throughout Europe there is an association between monarchism and conservatism. It is a little sad that American conservatives do not have access to that satisfaction. So even though Australia is much more distant from Europe (geographically) than the USA is, Australia is in some ways more of an outpost of Europe than America is! Mind you: Australia is not very atypical of its region. Australia lies just South of Asia -- and both Japan and Thailand have greatly respected monarchies. And the demise of the Cambodian monarchy was disastrous for Cambodia
Throughout the world today, possession of a U.S. or U.K. passport is greatly valued. I once shared that view. Developments in recent years have however made me profoundly grateful that I am a 5th generation Australian. My Australian passport is a door into a much less oppressive and much less messed-up place than either the USA or Britain
Following the Sotomayor precedent, I would hope that a wise older white man such as myself with the richness of that experience would more often than not reach a better conclusion than someone who hasn’t lived that life.
IQ and ideology: Most academics are Left-leaning. Why? Because very bright people who have balls go into business, while very bright people with no balls go into academe. I did both with considerable success, which makes me a considerable rarity. Although I am a born academic, I have always been good with money too. My share portfolio even survived the GFC in good shape. The academics hate it that bright people with balls make more money than them.
I have no hesitation in saying that the single book which has influenced me most is the New Testament. And my Scripture blog will show that I know whereof I speak. Some might conclude that I must therefore be a very confused sort of atheist but I can assure everyone that I do not feel the least bit confused. The New Testament is a lighthouse that has illumined the thinking of all sorts of men and women and I am deeply grateful that it has shone on me.
I am rather pleased to report that I am a lifelong conservative. Out of intellectual curiosity, I did in my youth join organizations from right across the political spectrum so I am certainly not closed-minded and am very familiar with the full spectrum of political thinking. Nonetheless, I did not have to undergo the lurch from Left to Right that so many people undergo. At age 13 I used my pocket-money to subscribe to the "Reader's Digest" -- the main conservative organ available in small town Australia of the 1950s. I have learnt much since but am pleased and amused to note that history has since confirmed most of what I thought at that early age. Conservatism is in touch with reality. Leftism is not.
I imagine that the RD are still sending mailouts to my 1950s address
Most teenagers have sporting and movie posters on their bedroom walls. At age 14 I had a map of Taiwan on my wall.
"Remind me never to get this guy mad at me" -- Instapundit
It seems to be a common view that you cannot talk informatively about a country unless you have been there. I completely reject that view but it is nonetheless likely that some Leftist dimbulb will at some stage aver that any comments I make about politics and events in the USA should not be heeded because I am an Australian who has lived almost all his life in Australia. I am reluctant to pander to such ignorance in the era of the "global village" but for the sake of the argument I might mention that I have visited the USA 3 times -- spending enough time in Los Angeles and NYC to get to know a fair bit about those places at least. I did however get outside those places enough to realize that they are NOT America.
"Intellectual" = Leftist dreamer. I have more publications in the academic journals than almost all "public intellectuals" but I am never called an intellectual and nor would I want to be. Call me a scholar or an academic, however, and I will accept either as a just and earned appellation
A small personal note: I have always been very self-confident. I inherited it from my mother, along with my skeptical nature. So I don't need to feed my self-esteem by claiming that I am wiser than others -- which is what Leftists do.
As with conservatives generally, it bothers me not a bit to admit to large gaps in my knowledge and understanding. For instance, I don't know if the slight global warming of the 20th century will resume in the 21st, though I suspect not. And I don't know what a "healthy" diet is, if there is one. Constantly-changing official advice on the matter suggests that nobody knows
Leftists are usually just anxious little people trying to pretend that they are significant. No doubt there are some Leftists who are genuinely concerned about inequities in our society but their arrogance lies in thinking that they understand it without close enquiry
My academic background
My full name is Dr. John Joseph RAY. I am a former university teacher aged 65 at the time of writing in 2009. I was born of Australian pioneer stock in 1943 at Innisfail in the State of Queensland in Australia. I trace my ancestry wholly to the British Isles. After an early education at Innisfail State Rural School and Cairns State High School, I taught myself for matriculation. I took my B.A. in Psychology from the University of Queensland in Brisbane. I then moved to Sydney (in New South Wales, Australia) and took my M.A. in psychology from the University of Sydney in 1969 and my Ph.D. from the School of Behavioural Sciences at Macquarie University in 1974. I first tutored in psychology at Macquarie University and then taught sociology at the University of NSW. My doctorate is in psychology but I taught mainly sociology in my 14 years as a university teacher. In High Schools I taught economics. I have taught in both traditional and "progressive" (low discipline) High Schools. Fuller biographical notes here
I completed the work for my Ph.D. at the end of 1970 but the degree was not awarded until 1974 -- due to some academic nastiness from Seymour Martin Lipset and Fred Emery. A conservative or libertarian who makes it through the academic maze has to be at least twice as good as the average conformist Leftist. Fortunately, I am a born academic.
Despite my great sympathy and respect for Christianity, I am the most complete atheist you could find. I don't even believe that the word "God" is meaningful. I am not at all original in that view, of course. Such views are particularly associated with the noted German philosopher Rudolf Carnap. Unlike Carnap, however, none of my wives have committed suicide
Very occasionally in my writings I make reference to the greats of analytical philosophy such as Carnap and Wittgenstein. As philosophy is a heavily Leftist discipline however, I have long awaited an attack from some philosopher accusing me of making coat-trailing references not backed by any real philosophical erudition. I suppose it is encouraging that no such attacks have eventuated but I thought that I should perhaps forestall them anyway -- by pointing out that in my younger days I did complete three full-year courses in analytical philosophy (at 3 different universities!) and that I have had papers on mainstream analytical philosophy topics published in academic journals
As well as being an academic, I am an army man and I am pleased and proud to say that I have worn my country's uniform. Although my service in the Australian army was chiefly noted for its un-notability, I DID join voluntarily in the Vietnam era, I DID reach the rank of Sergeant, and I DID volunteer for a posting in Vietnam. So I think I may be forgiven for saying something that most army men think but which most don't say because they think it is too obvious: The profession of arms is the noblest profession of all because it is the only profession where you offer to lay down your life in performing your duties. Our men fought so that people could say and think what they like but I myself always treat military men with great respect -- respect which in my view is simply their due.
A real army story here
Even a stopped clock is right twice a day and there is JUST ONE saying of Hitler's that I rather like. It may not even be original to him but it is found in chapter 2 of Mein Kampf (published in 1925): "Widerstaende sind nicht da, dass man vor ihnen kapituliert, sondern dass man sie bricht". The equivalent English saying is "Difficulties exist to be overcome" and that traces back at least to the 1920s -- with attributions to Montessori and others. Hitler's metaphor is however one of smashing barriers rather than of politely hopping over them and I am myself certainly more outspoken than polite. Hitler's colloquial Southern German is notoriously difficult to translate but I think I can manage a reasonable translation of that saying: "Resistance is there not for us to capitulate to but for us to break". I am quite sure that I don't have anything like that degree of determination in my own life but it seems to me to be a good attitude in general anyway
I have used many sites to post my writings over the years and many have gone bad on me for various reasons. So if you click on a link here to my other writings you may get a "page not found" response if the link was put up some time before the present. All is not lost, however. All my writings have been reposted elsewhere. If you do strike a failed link, just take the filename (the last part of the link) and add it to the address of any of my current home pages and -- Voila! -- you should find the article concerned.
COMMENTS: I have gradually added comments facilities to all my blogs. The comments I get are interesting. They are mostly from Leftists and most consist either of abuse or mere assertions. Reasoned arguments backed up by references to supporting evidence are almost unheard of from Leftists. Needless to say, I just delete such useless comments.
You can email me here (Hotmail address). In emailing me, you can address me as "John", "Jon", "Dr. Ray" or "JR" and that will be fine -- but my preference is for "JR" -- and that preference has NOTHING to do with an American soap opera that featured a character who was referred to in that way
DETAILS OF REGULARLY UPDATED BLOGS BY JOHN RAY:
"Tongue Tied"
"Dissecting Leftism"
"Australian Politics"
"Education Watch International"
"Political Correctness Watch"
"Greenie Watch"
Western Heart
BLOGS OCCASIONALLY UPDATED:
"Marx & Engels in their own words"
"A scripture blog"
"Recipes"
"Some memoirs"
To be continued ....
Coral reef compendium.
Queensland Police
Australian Police News
Paralipomena (3)
Of Interest
Dagmar Schellenberger
My alternative Wikipedia
BLOGS NO LONGER BEING UPDATED
"Food & Health Skeptic"
"Eye on Britain"
"Immigration Watch International".
"Leftists as Elitists"
Socialized Medicine
OF INTEREST (2)
QANTAS -- A dying octopus
BRIAN LEITER (Ladderman)
Obama Watch
Obama Watch (2)
Dissecting Leftism -- Large font site
Michael Darby
Paralipomena (2)
AGL -- A bumbling monster
Telstra/Bigpond follies
Optus bungling
Vodafrauds (vodafone)
Bank of Queensland blues
There are also two blogspot blogs which record what I think are my main recent articles here and here. Similar content can be more conveniently accessed via my subject-indexed list of short articles here or here (I rarely write long articles these days)
Some more useful links
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MONOGRAPH ON LEFTISM
CONSERVATISM AS HERESY
Rightism defined
Leftist Churches
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Fascism is Leftist
Hitler a socialist
Leftism is authoritarian
James on Leftism
Irbe on Leftism
Beltt on Leftism
Lakoff
Van Hiel
Sidanius
Kruglanski
Pyszczynski et al.
Cautionary blogs about big Australian organizations:
TELSTRA
OPTUS
AGL
Bank of Queensland
Queensland Police
Australian police news
QANTAS, a dying octopus
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basic home page
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Note: If the link to one of my articles is not working, the article concerned can generally be viewed by prefixing to the filename the following:
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